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Surface tension is an important factor in the phenomenon of capillarity. Surface tension has the dimension of force per unit length, or of energy per unit area. [4] The two are equivalent, but when referring to energy per unit of area, it is common to use the term surface energy, which is a more general term in the sense that it applies also to ...
Surface tension is exploited by alveoli by means of a surfactant that is produced by one of the cells and released to lower the surface tension of the fluid coating the inside of the alveoli to prevent these sacks from collapsing. Huh [3] and his fellow researchers created a lung mimic that replicated the function of native alveolar cells.
A: The bottom of a concave meniscus. B: The top of a convex meniscus. In physics (particularly fluid statics), the meniscus (pl.: menisci, from Greek 'crescent') is the curve in the upper surface of a liquid close to the surface of the container or another object, produced by surface tension.
Several conditions are needed to produce foam: there must be mechanical work, surface active components (surfactants) that reduce the surface tension, and the formation of foam faster than its breakdown. To create foam, work (W) is needed to increase the surface area (ΔA): = where γ is the surface tension.
The surface tension is a linear function of the temperature. This assumption is approximately fulfilled for most known liquids. When plotting the surface tension versus the temperature a fairly straight line can be seen which has a surface tension of zero at the critical temperature.
The surface energy of a liquid may be measured by stretching a liquid membrane (which increases the surface area and hence the surface energy). In that case, in order to increase the surface area of a mass of liquid by an amount, δA, a quantity of work, γ δA, is needed (where γ is the surface energy density of the liquid).
An approximate theory was developed by Bernard Vonnegut [3] in 1942 to measure the surface tension of the fluids, which is based on the principle that the interfacial tension and centrifugal forces are balanced at mechanical equilibrium. This theory assumes that the droplet's length L is much greater than its radius R, so that it may be ...
Surface tension is the energy that is required to produce the surface, per unit area. A film—like any body or structure—prefers to exist in a state of minimum potential energy. In order to minimize its energy, a droplet of liquid in free space naturally assumes a spherical shape, which has the minimum surface area for a given volume.