Coalescence of viscoelastic sessile drops: the small and large contact angle limits

The coalescence and breakup of drops are classic examples of flows that feature singularities. The behaviour of viscoelastic fluids near these singularities is particularly intriguing – not only because of their added complexity, but also due to the unexpected responses they often exhibit. In particular, experiments have shown that the coalescence of viscoelastic sessile drops can differ significantly from that of their Newtonian counterparts, sometimes resulting in a sharply distorted interface. However, the mechanisms driving these differences in dynamics, as well as the potential influence of the contact angle are not fully known. Here, we study two different flow regimes effectively induced by varying the contact angle and demonstrate how that leads to markedly different coalescence behaviours. We show that the coalescence dynamics is effectively unaltered by viscoelasticity at small contact angles. The Deborah number, which is the ratio of the relaxation time of the polymer to the time scale of the background flow, scales as $\theta ^3$ for $\theta \ll 1$ , thus rationalising the near-Newtonian response. On the other hand, it has been shown previously that viscoelasticity dramatically alters the shape of the interface during coalescence at large contact angles. We study this large contact angle limit using two-dimensional numerical simulations of the equation of motion. We show that the departure of the coalescence dynamics from the Newtonian case is a function of the Deborah number and the elastocapillary number, which is the ratio between the shear modulus of the polymer solution and the characteristic stress in the fluid.