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Inside rod induced horizontal capillary emptying

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 August 2021

Xinping Zhou Open the ORCID record for Xinping Zhou [Opens in a new window] ,
Gang Zhang Open the ORCID record for Gang Zhang [Opens in a new window] ,
Chengwei Zhu ,
Dongwen Tan  and
Chenyu Fu
Xinping Zhou*
Affiliation:
School of Mechanical Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan430074, PR China
Gang Zhang
Affiliation:
School of Mechanical Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan430074, PR China Department of Mechanics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan430074, PR China
Chengwei Zhu
Affiliation:
School of Mechanical Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan430074, PR China Department of Mechanics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan430074, PR China
Dongwen Tan
Affiliation:
School of Mechanical Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan430074, PR China
Chenyu Fu
Affiliation:
School of Mechanical Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan430074, PR China
*
† Email address for correspondence: xpzhou08@hust.edu.cn
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Abstract

The removal of a liquid blockage from a tube is of importance in many processes. If the Bond number (which measures the relative size of the gravitational force by comparison with the surface tension force on the blockage plug) is large enough, then the tube will become non-occluding automatically. If not, then other measures are required to remove the blockage and the insertion of a rod is one such measure. We investigate this situation in a horizontal capillary in a downward gravity field. Theoretical results are obtained and compared with experiments. We observe that a rod insertion can cause a change from liquid plug to non-occlusion in a horizontal capillary. For uniform inner and outer contact angles, compared with the case without an inside rod, the maximum of the critical emptying line decreases significantly, but the minimum decreases a little only for a large enough value of the ratio of inner radius to outer radius (χ). We find that changing the contact angles of the inserted tube can significantly affect the non-occluding of the tube. The minimum of critical emptying line can be lowered clearly, and the minimum for a large enough value of χ is much lower than that reached for a circular tube. The insertion of a hydrophobic (hydrophilic) rod with a large enough radius can make the liquid emptying easier in a horizontal hydrophilic (hydrophobic) capillary. This provides an effective method of triggering drainage of a fluid from a capillary in applications such as optofluidics and microfluidics.

JFM classification

Interfacial Flows (free surface): Capillary flows
Type
JFM Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 924 , 10 October 2021 , A23
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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