Contact Line Stability and “Undercompressive Shocks” in Driven Thin Film Flow
- 7 December 1998
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review Letters
- Vol. 81 (23), 5169-5172
- https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.81.5169
Abstract
We present new experimental results for films driven by a thermal gradient with an opposing gravitational force. When the gravitational effect becomes non-negligible, the advancing front produces a very large capillary ridge which shows a remarkable tendency to remain stable. This phenomenon can be explained by new mathematical results for a lubrication model of the experiment. The advancing front evolves into an “undercompressive” capillary shock structure which is stable to contact line perturbations, unlike typical capillary ridges in driven film flows.Keywords
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