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arXiv · 1607.05990

Elastocapillary bending of microfibers around liquid droplets

Rafael D. Schulman·Amir Porat·Kathleen Charlesworth·Adam Fortais·Thomas Salez·Elie Raphaël·Kari Dalnoki-Veress
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Abstract

We report on the elastocapillary deformation of flexible microfibers in contact with liquid droplets. A fiber is observed to bend more as the size of the contacting droplet is increased. At a critical droplet size, proportional to the bending elastocapillary length, the fiber is seen to spontaneously wind around the droplet. To rationalize these observations, we invoke a minimal model based on elastic beam theory, and find agreement with experimental data. Further energetic considerations provide a consistent prediction for the winding criterion.

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Rafael D. Schulman, Amir Porat, Kathleen Charlesworth, Adam Fortais, Thomas Salez, Elie Raphaël, Kari Dalnoki-Veress. 2016-07-20. Elastocapillary bending of microfibers around liquid droplets. https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.05990

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