Coexistence of two singularities in dewetting flows: regularizing the corner tip

Entrainment in wetting and dewetting flows often occurs through the formation of a corner with a very sharp tip. This corner singularity comes on top of the divergence of viscous stress near the contact line, which is only regularized at molecular scales. We investigate the fine structure of corners...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2009-09, Vol.103 (11), p.114501-114501, Article 114501
Main Authors: Peters, Ivo, Snoeijer, Jacco H, Daerr, Adrian, Limat, Laurent
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biomechanics
Condensed Matter
Engineering Sciences
Fluid mechanics
Mechanics
Nonlinear Sciences
Pattern Formation and Solitons
Physics
Reactive fluid environment
Soft Condensed Matter
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Summary:Entrainment in wetting and dewetting flows often occurs through the formation of a corner with a very sharp tip. This corner singularity comes on top of the divergence of viscous stress near the contact line, which is only regularized at molecular scales. We investigate the fine structure of corners appearing at the rear of sliding drops. Experiments reveal a sudden decrease of tip radius, down to 20 microm, before entrainment occurs. We propose a lubrication model for this phenomenon, which compares well to experiments. Despite the disparity of length scales, it turns out that the tip size is set by the classical viscous singularity, for which we deduce a nanometric length from our macroscopic measurements.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.114501