Numerical and Experimental Estimation on the Normal and Tangential Capillary Bridge Force Adhered to Two Spheres

The capillary force adhered to spheres has been numerically and experimentally evaluated for modelling the interaction force of a liquid bridge in wet granular matter. The estimation on the binding force especially at funicular state has several unknown problems due to kinematic characteristic of binder liquid especially on the three phase contact line of particles. The static and dynamic liquid bridge adhered to two spheres in the normal and tangential direction had measured with a surface tensiometer. The contact profile of a liquid bridge on a sphere should be approximated as not a circular but an elliptic curve due to the liquid bridge hysterisis and axial asymmetry. The experimental results have been compared with the numerical solutions of the Young-Laplace equations for the static bridge and the simulation by lattice Boltzmann method for the dynamic.