A theoretical method to determine the location and static deformation of an acoustically levitated liquid drop in air is presented. The interaction between drop and sound field, involving nonspherical acoustic scattering and drop volume variation, is the crux of this analysis, which is valid for drops with aspect ratio as large as 2. Numerical calculations are presented of drop shape and location as functions of sound pressure, surface tension, and drop volume in both gravity (1g) and gravity-free (0g) environments. The numerical results agree well with our experimental measurements and those of other researchers.
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Tian et al. (1993) studied this question.