The force on a bubble, drop, or particle in arbitrary time-dependent motion at small Reynolds number

The hydrodynamic force on a body that undergoes translational acceleration in an unbounded fluid at low Reynolds number is considered. The results extend the prior analysis of Lovalenti and Brady [to appear in J. Fluid Mech. (1993)] for rigid particles to drops and bubbles. Similar behavior is shown in that, with the inclusion of convective inertia, the long-time temporal decay of the force (or the approach to steady state) at finite Reynolds number is faster than the t−1/2 predicted by the unsteady Stokes equations.