PHYSICA ELSEVIER Physica A 230 (1996) 455-466 Scaling properties for ordered/disordered 2-D dry froths H.J. Ruskin*, Y. Feng School of Computer Applications, Dublin City University, Dublin 9, Ireland Received 15 February 1996 Abstract We investigate the evolutionary behaviour of a 2-D dry froth with initial ordered/disordered conditions corresponding, respectively, to monodisperse/polydisperse topological networks. Using the direct simulation approach, we discuss the scaling properties of the cell side distribution, f(n), and its second moment, #2, for various system sizes and initial structures. For the case of a highly ordered network, the introduction of disorder may be viewed in terms of "seeding" the froth system with a number of defects, d, where for d = 1 previous work has shown that stable conditions are not achieved. We find that the limiting behaviour here depends on the amount of disorder, where this is quantified by the proportion of non-uniform initial cells and the pattern of seeding. Our findings support the view that a quasi-scaling state exists for the highly ordered froth, in contrast to the universal scaling state of the disordered and low-ordered froth. In the light of these results, we briefly reconsider the question of transience for the early results of Aboav (1980). I. Introduction Materials with cellular structure appear in many guises in fields of geology, met- allurgy, biology and so on. The soap froth as an ideal model of a cellular network has attracted considerable attention, providing valuable insight into the behaviour of these complex disordered systems. Original studies of 2-D froth structures are due to Smith [1], and subsequently, Aboav [2] and have stimulated much theoretical, experi- mental and computer simulation work over recent years, e.g. [3-14]. For reviews see [15-18]. * Corresponding author. 0378-4371/96/$15.00 Copyright (~) 1996 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved PH S0378-4371 (96)00111-2