On the stability of bubble chains in carbonated drinks

Bubbles appear when a carbonated drink is poured in a glass. Very stable bubble chains are clearly observed in champagne, showing an almost straight line from microscopic nucleation sites from which they are continuously formed. In some other drinks such as soda, such chains are not straight (not stable). Considering pair interactions for spherical clean bubbles (Hallez & Legendre JFM 2011), bubble chains should not be stable which contradicts some observations. The aim of this work is to explain the condition of stability of bubble chains. For this purpose, experiments and direct numerical simulation are conducted. The bubble size as well as the level of interface contamination are varied. Both are shown to affect the bubble chain stability. A criteria based on physical arguments is proposed to describe the condition of transition from stable to unstable bubble chain.