| Issue |
EPL
Volume 153, Number 4, February 2026
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | 43002 | |
| Number of page(s) | 7 | |
| Section | Fluid and nonlinear dynamics | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/ae437e | |
| Published online | 20 February 2026 | |
A reduced model for droplet dynamics with interfacial viscosity(a)
Department of Physics and INFN, Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata - Via della Ricerca Scientifica, 1-00133 Rome, Italy
Received: 17 December 2025
Accepted: 9 February 2026
Abstract
We propose an extension of the phenomenological Maffettone-Minale (MM) model (Maffettone P. L. and Minale M., J. Non-Newton. Fluid Mech., 78 (1998) 227) to describe the time-dependent deformation of a droplet with interfacial viscosity in a shear flow. The droplet, characterised by surface tension σ, is spherical at rest with radius R and deforms into an ellipsoidal shape under a shear flow of rate G, described by a symmetric second-order tensor S. In addition to surface tension, the extended MM (EMM) model incorporates interfacial shear and dilatational viscosities, μs and μd, through the corresponding Boussinesq numbers 
and 
, where μ is the bulk viscosity. A central goal of this work is to quantify the parameter range over which the EMM model provides a realistic description of droplet deformation, as a function of the capillary number 
and the Boussinesq numbers. To this end, model predictions are systematically compared with fully resolved numerical simulations.
Contribution to the Focus Issue on Complex Flows and Complex Fluids edited by Alessandra S. Lanotte, Massimo Cencini, Luca Biferale and Adriano Barra
© 2026 The author(s)
Published by the EPLA under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY). Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.
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