Overview

1. Objective and Scope Bubbles, drops and rigid particles occur everywhere in life, from valuable industrial operations like gas-liquid contracting, fluidized beds and extraction to such vital natural processes as fermentation, evaporation, and sedimentation. As we become increasingly aware of their fundamental role in industrial and biological systems, we are driven to know more about these fascinating particles. It is no surprise, therefore, that their practical and theoretical implications have aroused great interest among the scientific community and have inspired a growing number of studies and publications. Over the past ten years advances in the field of small Reynolds numbers flows and their technological and biological applications have given rise to several definitive monographs and textbooks in the area. In addition, the past three decades have witnessed enormous progress in describing quantitatively the behaviour of these particles. However, to the best of our knowledge, there are still no available books that reflect such achievements in the areas of bubble and drop deformation, hydrodynamic interactions of deformable fluid particles at low and moderate Reynolds numbers and hydrodynamic interactions of particles in oscillatory flows. Indeed, only one more book is dedicated entirely to the behaviour of bubbles, drops and rigid particles ["Bubbles, Drops and Particles" by Clift et al. (1978)] and the authors state its limitations clearly in the preface: "We treat only phenomena in which particle-particle interactions are of negligible importance. Hence, direct application of the book is limited to single-particle systems of dilute suspensions.