Abstract
A liquid drop on a horizontal plane is in a metastable state. Its energy is independent of its position. In a microgravity environment, this is likewise true for liquid drops in a spherical container. Apart from these trivial cases, several container shapes with exotic properties are considered in this chapter. It is possible to construct cylindrical container shapes (so-called proboscides) in which liquid surfaces with equal curvatures but different energies and volumes are possible, so that dp/dV = 0. The wedges in these containers are wetted by a fluid only if the contact angle falls short of a critical contact angle. However, at infinitesimal fill levels, the capillary underpressure which causes the fluid to wet the wedges does not diverge towards infinity as for planar wedges.
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© 2002 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Langbein, D. (2002). Playing with Stability. In: Langbein, D. (eds) Capillary Surfaces. Springer Tracts in Modern Physics, vol 178. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45267-2_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45267-2_10
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