Interaction of two dielectric or conducting droplets aligned in the uniform electric field

Mutual interaction of two identical droplets, dielectric or conducting, placed in an ideal dielectric fluid and aligned with the external uniform electric field is investigated in this paper. The simulation algorithm combines the Finite Difference Method for the equation of droplet distortion, and the Boundary Element Method for the electric field distribution. Both techniques are used iteratively until the convergence is reached. The droplet distortion and the force of mutual attraction are calculated for different values of the non-dimensional electric number, the distance between both droplets and their permittivities.