A foam is not a homogeneous material, but consists of a large
number of small air bubbles. The whole is more than the sum of its parts:
even though the behavior of a single bubble is easy to understand, their
collective behavior is much more complicated and completely different.
The reason for this is that a deformation of the whole is only reflected
partially in the deformation of individual bubbles. Instead, a large part of
the deformation is reflected in a change in the structure of the foam. In this
thesis, we investigate this change in structure.
In the first part of this thesis, we use a simple microscopic computer
model to simulate the response of a foam when it is deformed by a tiny
amount, and measure how far we need to deform
the foam until it is irreversibly deformed.
Show more
A foam is not a homogeneous material, but consists of a large
number of small air bubbles. The whole is more than the sum of its parts:
even though the behavior of a single bubble is easy to understand, their
collective behavior is much more complicated and completely different.
The reason for this is that a deformation of the whole is only reflected
partially in the deformation of individual bubbles. Instead, a large part of
the deformation is reflected in a change in the structure of the foam. In this
thesis, we investigate this change in structure.
In the first part of this thesis, we use a simple microscopic computer
model to simulate the response of a foam when it is deformed by a tiny
amount, and measure how far we need to deform
the foam until it is irreversibly deformed.
In the second part of this thesis, we focus on an experiment, where we measure the response of a two-dimensional foam when it is deformed at the edges. We observe that the
response of bubbles in the center of the foam qualitatively depends on how
densely the bubbles are packed together.
Show less
