Capillary number

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In fluid dynamics, the capillary number represents the relative effect of viscous forces versus surface tension acting across an interface between a liquid and a gas, or between two immiscible liquids. It is defined as

\text{Ca} \ \stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}\ \frac{\mu v}{\sigma}

where μ is the viscosity of the liquid, v is a characteristic velocity and σ is the surface or interfacial tension between the two fluid phases.

For low capillary numbers (a rule of thumb says less than 10 - 5), flow in porous media is dominated by capillary forces.

[edit] See also

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Dimensionless numbers in fluid dynamics
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