Rimming flow in a rotating horizontal cylinder with phase change at the interface

Abstract

The two-dimensional solutions and stability analysis are presented for an evaporating thin viscous liquid film flowing inside a uniformly heated rotating horizontal cylinder. A non-linear, fourth-order, partial differential evolution equation is obtained by simplifying mass, momentum, and energy conservation equations within the lubrication approximation. The effect of evaporation, gravity, viscous drag, surface tension, thermocapillary stress, and intermolecular forces has been taken into account. The numerical solutions of the model are validated against the existing experimental as well as the numerical results, along with the analytical result for the limiting cases of the present model. The film thickness model is solved to elucidate two-dimensional spatiotemporal solutions and their stability for a wide range of thermal and other parameters. The evaporative mass flux at the liquid–air interface results in unsteady solutions which are oscillatory in nature, and the amplitude of the oscillations increases with an increase in the evaporative flux. The film ruptures after some time and the rupture time is found to be inversely proportional to the evaporation number, a non-dimensional number quantifying the rate of evaporation. The linear stability analysis shows that the thermocapillary stresses as well as the long-range molecular forces destabilize the film. A negative disjoining pressure is shown to reduce the rupture time and vice versa. Evaporation (condensation) plays a destabilizing (stabilizing) role in the thin film flow. Non-linear computations are carried out for the steady profiles, validating the growth rates obtained from the linear stability analysis.