Can anyone please shed some light on Morton number and its physical significance? Where it is a must to use Mo instead of Bond number or Eotvos number and why?
In fluid dynamics the Eötvös number (Eo), also called the Bond number (Bo), is a dimensionless number measuring the importance of gravitational forces compared to surface tension forces and is used together with Morton number to characterize the shape of bubbles or drops moving in a surrounding fluid. The Morton number can also be expressed by using a combination of the Weber number, Froude number and Reynolds number, Mo = W^3/(FxR^4).
In the case of bubble dynamics, we study the effect of Eo number on the shape instabilities of the rising bubble. However, Eo number contains the radius of the bubble which is actually changing continuously with time. Thus, there is a need to define Morton number which depends only on the fluid properties and not on the bubble radius. Morton number is a suitable ratio of Eo and Ga numbers so as to eliminate the bubble radius.