STATISTICAL DISTRIBUTION-FUNCTIONS IN 2D FOAMS

The statistical distribution of bubbles in a 2D foam has been determined according to their area. A 2D foam chamber was designed and constructed, which allows long-term video recordings to be made. The bubbles corresponding to the last six frames, when the so-called scaling state is attained, were digitized at equally spaced time intervals, to measure their surface and count their number of neighbors. From the numerical results the empirical distribution functions are determined. Kolmogorov's compatibility criterion was used to measure the differences between these empirical and three theoretical distribution functions: the normal distribution (bad fit, but a favorite of earlier reports), the power regression (good fit), and the log normal (the best fit). © 1994 American Institute of Physics.