Deformation and burst of a liquid droplet freely suspended in a linear shear field

A theoretical method is presented for predicting the deformation and the conditions for breakup of a liquid droplet freely suspended in a general linear shear field. This is achieved by expanding the solution to the creeping-flow equations in powers of the deformation parameter ε and using linear stability theory to determine the onset of bursting. When compared with numerical solutions and with the available experimental data, the theoretical results are generally found to be of acceptable accuracy although, in some cases, the agreement is only qualitative.