Capillary holdup between vertical spheres

Abstract

The maximum volume of liquid bridge left between two vertically mounted spherical particles has been theoretically determined and experimentally measured. As the gravitational effect has not been neglected in the theoretical model, the liquid interface profile is nonsymmetrical around the X-axis. Symmetry in the interface profile only occurs when either the particle size ratio or the gravitational force becomes zero. In this paper, some equations are derived as a function of the spheres' sizes, gap width, liquid density, surface tension and body force (gravity/centrifugal) to estimate the maximum amount of liquid that can be held between the two solid spheres. Then a comparison is made between the result based on these equations and several experimental results.