On the attraction of floating particles

✍ Scribed by W.A. Gifford; L.E. Scriven

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1971
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 800 KB
• Volume: 26
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0009-2509
• DOI: 10.1016/0009-2509(71)83003-8

✦ Synopsis

Capillary attraction between floating particles, a phenomenon of everyday experience as well as technological importance, is caused by interfacial tension and buoyancy forces that have defied calculation so far owing to the complicated shape of the intervening meniscus. The one exception is treated here: parallel, stationary cylinders of infinite length. Computations show that the attractive force falls off nearly exponentially with separation. The parallel configuration is unstable until cylinders make contact, as experiments with finite rods confirm.