Image by M.

Boran (Dublin)

Foams
The Physics of
 Outline
• Foam structure – rules and description
• Dynamics

Prototypes for many other systems:

metallic grain growth,
biological organisms,
crystal structure, emulsions,
…
 Motivation
Many applications of
industrial importance:
•Oil recovery
•Fire-fighting
•Ore separation
•Industrial cleaning
•Vehicle manufacture
•Food products
Dynamic phenomena in
Foams

Must first understand the foam’s structure

What is a foam?
• Depends on the length-scale:

• Depends on the liquid content:

hard-spheres, tiling of space, …
How are foams made?

from Weaire & Hutzler, The Physics of Foams (Oxford)

 Single bubble

Soap film minimizes its energy = surface area

Least area way to enclose a given volume is a sphere.

Isoperimetric problem

(known to Greeks, proven in 19th century)

 Laplace-Young Law
(200 years old)

Mean curvature C of each film is balanced

by the pressure difference across it:

 C  p
Coefficient of proportionality is the surface tension

Soap films have constant mean curvature

 Plateau’s Rules

Minimization of area gives geometrical constraints

(“observation” = Plateau, proof = Taylor):
• Three (and only three) films meet, at 120°, in a Plateau border
•Plateau borders always meet symmetrically in fours
(Maraldi angle).
 Tetrahedral and Cubic
Frames
Plateau

For each film, calculate shape that gives surface of zero mean curvature.
Bubbles in wire frames

D’Arcy Thompson
 Ken Brakke’s Surface
Evolver
“The Surface Evolver is software expressly
designed for the modeling of soap bubbles,
foams, and other liquid surfaces
shaped by minimizing energy subject to
various constraints …”

http://www.susqu.edu/brakke/evolver/
 y
sil ble
a
E rva
ob
se “Two-dimensional” Foams

Lawrence Bragg Cyril Stanley Smith

(crystals) (grain growth)

Plateau & Laplace-Young: in

equilibrium, each film is a circular
arc; they meet three-fold at 120°.

Energy proportional to perimeter

Topological changes
• T1: neighbour swapping

(reduces perimeter)

• T2: bubble disappearance

Describing 2D foam structure

• Euler’s Law:

n 6
• Second moment of number of edges per bubble:

 2 (n)   p(n)(n  6) 2

n
 Describing foam structure
Aboav-Weaire Law:

6a   2 ( n)
m( n)  6  a 
n
where m(n) is the average number of sides of cells with n-sided neighbours.

Applied (successfully) to many natural and artificial cellular structures.

What is a?
 2D space-filling structure

Honeycomb conjecture
Hales
Fejes-Toth
 Finite 2D clusters
Find minimal energy cluster for N bubbles.
Proofs for N=2 and 3.

Morgan et al. Wichiramala

How many possibilities are there for each N?

Work with Graner (Grenoble) and Vaz (Lisbon)

Candidates for N=4 to 23, coloured by topological charge

 200 bubbles
Honeycomb structure in bulk;
what shape should surface take?
 Lotus flowers
Tarnai (Budapest)

Seed heads represented by perimeter minima for bubbles inside a circular

constraint?
Also work on fly eyes (Carthew) and sea urchins (Raup, D’Arcy Thompson)
 Conformal Foams Drenckhan et al. (2004) , Eur. J. Phys.

Conformal map f(z) Bilinear maps preserve

preserves angles (120º) arcs of circles

Equilibrium foam structure mapped onto equilibrium foam structure

f(z) ~ e z

Logarithmic spiral
Gravity’s Rainbow Drenckhan et al. (2004) , Eur. J. Phys.

Setup

Theoretical prediction

Experimental result

translational symmetry rotational symmetry

w = (i)-1log(iz) w ~ z1/(1-)
Ordered Foams in 3D

ratio: bubble diameter / tube diameter

gas - pressure; nozzle diameter

(Elias, Hutzler, Drenckhan)
 Description of 3D bulk
structure
• Topological changes similar, but more possibilities.
12 2
• F   2  13.39
6 n 3 cos (1 / 3)  
1
(Euler, Coxeter, Kusner)

restricts possible regular structures.

2
• Second moment: 2 (F )  F 2
 F

R
• Sauter mean radius: 32  R 3
/ R 2
(polydisperse)
• Aboav-Weaire Law
 3D space-filling structure
Polyhedral cells with curved faces packed together to fill space.
What’s the best arrangement? (Kelvin problem)
Euler & Plateau: need structure with average of 13.39 faces and 5.1 edges per face

14 “delicately curved” faces

(6 squares, 8 hexagons)
<E>=5.14
See Weaire (ed), The Kelvin Problem (1994) Kelvin’s Bedspring (tetrakaidecahedron)
 Weaire-Phelan structure
Kelvin’s candidate structure reigned for 100 years
WP is based on A15 TCP structure/ β-tungsten clathrate
<F>=13.5, <E>=5.111
0.3% lower in surface area

2 pentagonal dodecahedra
6 Goldberg 14-hedra

Swimming pool for 2008 Beijing Olympics (ARUP) Surface Evolver

3D Monodisperse Foams

nergy

Matzke
Quasi-crystals?
 Finite 3D clusters
Find minimal energy cluster for N bubbles.
Must eliminate strange possibilities:
J.M.Sullivan (Berlin)

Proof that “obvious” answer is the right one for

N=2 bubbles in 3D, but for no greater N.
27 bubbles
surround one
Finite 3D clusters
other

DWT

Central bubble
from 123 bubble cluster
 Dynamics

Coarsening

Graner, Cloetens (Grenoble)

Drainage
Rheology
 Coarsening
Gas diffuses across soap films
due to pressure differences
between bubbles.

Von Neumann’s Law - rate of

change of area due to gas diffusion
depends only upon number of sides:

dA
 k (n  6)
dt
T1 s and T2 s
Only in 2D. Also applies to grain growth.
 Coarsening
In 3D, d 2/3
dt
V  
 G(F ) ?

Stationary
bubble has
13.39 faces
 Foam Rheology
• Elastic solids at low strain
• Behave as plastic solids as
strain increases
• Liquid-like at very high strain

Exploit bubble-scale structure (Plateau’s laws) to predict and

model the rheological response of foams.
Energy dissipated through topological changes
(even in limit of zero shear-rate).
Properties scale with average bubble area.
J.A. Glazier (Indiana) 2D contraction flow
 Couette Shear
Experiment by G. Debregeas (Paris), PRL ‘01
(Experiment)
Much faster
than real-time.

Shear banding? Localization? cf Lauridsen et al. PRL 2002

 Couette Shear Simulations
Quasistatic: Include viscous drag on bounding plates:
 Outlook

This apparently complex two-phase material has a

well-defined local structure.

This structure allows progress in predicting the

dynamic properties of foams

The Voronoi construction provides a useful starting condition (e.g. for

simulations and special cases) but neglects the all-important curvature.