Breakup mechanism of the electrically induced conical liquid bridge

Abstract

The breakup mechanism of a conical liquid bridge is reported based on the previously proposed electrostatic liquid loading method. The breakup criterion in terms of interface feature size is derived. Based on the criterion, the breakup mechanism can be categorized as either spontaneous breakup or stretching breakup. The evolution of interface and velocity for two breakup behaviors is subsequently investigated. For the spontaneous breakup, the remnant volume Vd depends primarily on the top radius Rt and is proportional to the square of Rt. For the stretching breakup, the remnant volume depends on the early stage of the stretching, and Vd is proportional to the cube of Rt. In addition, the influence of the stretching velocity U is examined. Results show that U has a weaker effect on the change of remnant volume than the top radius Rt for large capillary numbers. This study is helpful in understanding the liquid bridge breakup mechanism and improving the transfer printing process.