Capillary bonding

We present here the capillary cohesion resulting from a liquid bridge between two particles. The bridge between two particles of different sizes takes a complex shape as illustrated in figure 1. R1 and R2 are the particle radii, ζ1 and ζ2 are the filling angles (corresponding to the wetted surface of the particles), θ is the wetting angle, and δn is the distance between particles. The axis x coincides with the axis of rotation of the liquid bridge, and the coordinate y describes the profile of the meridian of the bridge as a function of x. The radius of the bridge is denoted y0. The coordinates x of the three-phase contact line (also called triple line), i.e. the line defining the solid-liquid-gas interface, are denoted by xc1 and xc2 respectively for particles 1 and 2.