Experimental investigations of liquid bridge rupture between a sphere and a spherical concave

Abstract The formation and rupture of liquid bridges between solid surfaces have widespread applications in micro gripping, self-alignment, and particles wetting. The axisymmetric liquid bridge rupture between a sphere and a spherical concave is systematically investigated in this study. Detailed analysis was conducted to examine the effects of the radius ratio, liquid bridge volume, and contact angles on the rupture distance and transfer ratio. When the radius ratio is smaller than 2, it exerts a substantial impact on the rupture distance and transfer ratio. The experimental studies support the effectiveness of the simulation modeling based on a minimal energy approach. Theoretical findings of the shooting method and simulated results exhibit great agreement. The maximum absolute errors for rupture distance and transfer ratio were 0.001 and 0.0175, respectively. The simulated and theoretical results are helpful to predict the rupture distance and transfer ratio.