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arXiv · 2308.01774

Coalescence of elastic blisters filled with a viscous fluid

Torstein Sæter·Christian Pedersen·Jacco H. Snoeijer·Thomas Salez·Andreas Carlson
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Abstract

Pockets of viscous fluid coalescing beneath an elastic plate are encountered in a wide range of natural phenomena and engineering processes, spanning across scales. As the pockets merge, a bridge is formed with a height increasing as the plate relaxes. We study the spatiotemporal dynamics of such an elasto-hydrodynamic coalescence process by combining experiments, lubrication theory and numerical simulations. The bridge height exhibits an exponential growth with time, which corresponds to a self-similar solution of the bending-driven thin-film equation. We address this unique self-similarity and the self-similar shape of the bridge, both of which are corroborated in numerical simulations and experiments.

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Torstein Sæter, Christian Pedersen, Jacco H. Snoeijer, Thomas Salez, Andreas Carlson. 2023-08-03. Coalescence of elastic blisters filled with a viscous fluid. https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.01774

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