Steady viscoelastic film flow over 2D topography: I. The effect of viscoelastic properties under creeping flow

Abstract

Two-dimensional, steady flow of a viscoelastic film over a periodic topography under the action of a body force is studied. The exponential Phan-Thien and Tanner (ePTT) constitutive model is used. The conservation equations are solved via the usual mixed finite element method combined with a quasi-elliptic grid generation scheme in order to capture the large deformations of the free surface. The constitutive equation is weighted using the SUPG method and solved via the polymeric stress splitting EVSS-G technique. First, the code is validated by verifying that in isolated topographies the periodicity conditions result in fully developed viscoelastic film flow at the inflow/outflow boundaries and that its predictions for Newtonian fluids over 2D topography under creeping flow conditions coincide with those of previous works. Since the lubrication approximation is not invoked here, the topographical features can have wall segments that form any angle with the main flow, but only slight smoothing of the convex corners assists in reducing the stress singularity there. Thus, steady-state solutions are computed accurately up to high Deborah numbers, resulting in large deformations of the free surface. The magnitude of the capillary ridge in the film before the entrance to a step down of the substrate and of the capillary depression before a step up is increased as De increases up to ∼0.7 due to increased fluid elasticity. Above this value they decrease, because increasing De increases also the shear and elongational thinning, which eventually affect them more. Increasing the ratio of solvent to polymer viscosities, β, the elongational parameter, ɛ and the molecular slip parameter, ξ, monotonically increases their magnitudes and especially that of the capillary ridge, but the mechanisms leading to these changes are different as explained in the text.