Experimental Growth Law for Bubbles in a Moderately “Wet” 3D Liquid Foam

Abstract

We used x-ray tomography to characterize the geometry of all bubbles in a liquid foam of average liquid fraction phi(l) approximately 17% and to follow their evolution, measuring the normalized growth rate G=V(-1/3) dV/dt for 7000 bubbles. While G does not depend only on the number of faces of a bubble, its average over f-faced bubbles scales as G(f) approximately f - f(0) for large f's at all times. We discuss the dispersion of G and the influence of V and phi(l) on G.