Lifetime of vertical giant soap films: role of the relative humidity and film dimensions.

We consider the lifetime of rectangular vertical soap films and we explore the influence of relative humidity and both dimensions on the stability of large soap films, reaching heights of up to 1.2 m. Using an automated rupture detection system, we achieve a robust statistical measurement of their lifetimes and we also measure the film thinning dynamics.

Hierarchical bubble size distributions in coarsening wet liquid foams.

Coarsening of two-phase systems is crucial for the stability of dense particle packings such as alloys, foams, emulsions, or supersaturated solutions. Mean field theories predict an asymptotic scaling state with a broad particle size distribution. Aqueous foams are good model systems for investigations of coarsening-induced structures, because the continuous liquid as well as the dispersed gas phases are uniform and isotropic.

Coarsening transitions of wet liquid foams under microgravity conditions.

We report foam coarsening studies which were performed in the International Space Station (ISS) to suppress drainage due to gravity. Foams and bubbly liquids with controlled liquid fractions between 15 and 50% were investigated to study the transition between bubble growth laws previously reported near the dry limit → 0 and the dilute limit → 1 (Ostwald ripening). We determined the coarsening rates for the driest foams and the bubbly liquids, they are in close agreement with theoretical predictions.

An optimized recipe for making giant bubbles.

Large bubbles are primarily used in physics laboratories to study 2D turbulence, surface wavers, and fundamental properties of soap systems. Outside of physics, blowing large bubbles is also a part of many performances and shows. Both the scientific and artistic communities usually want to get reasonably stable foam films.

The impact of physical-chemistry on film thinning in surface bubbles.

In this paper, we investigate the thinning dynamics of evaporating surfactant-stabilised surface bubbles by considering the role of physical-chemistry of solutions used in a liquid bath. We study the impact of the surfactant concentration below and above the cmc (critical micelle concentration) and the role of ambient humidity. First, in a humidity-saturated atmosphere, we show that if the initial thickness depends on the surfactant concentration and is limited by the surface elasticity, the drainage dynamics are very well described from the capillary and gravity contributions.

A new setup for giant soap films characterization.

Artists, using empirical knowledge, manage to generate and play with giant soap films and bubbles. Until now, scientific studies of soap films generated at a controlled velocity and without any feeding from the top, studied films of a few square centimeters. The present work aims to present a new setup to generate and characterize giant soap films (2 m [Formula: see text] 0.

Stability of big surface bubbles: impact of evaporation and bubble size.

Surface bubbles have attracted much interest in the past few decades. In this article, we aim to explore the lifetime and thinning dynamics of centimetric surface bubbles. We study the impact of the bubble size as well as that of the atmospheric humidity through a careful control and systematic variation of the relative humidity in the measuring chamber.