The effect of hydrodynamic coupling on the thinning of a film between a drop and its homophase

Abstract

The rate of thinning of a film trapped between a drop approaching its homophase according to a model incorporating hydrodynamic coupling is dramatically different from earlier, uncoupled models. Implications for film thinning of microflows analyzed in the preceding paper are here investigated using similar analytical methods to derive a nonautonomous, nonlinear evolution equation for the film thickness which has been solved numerically under a variety of conditions after asymptotic analytical behavior has been extracted. The applied force squeezing the film, together with the initial motion in the three phases, determines the rate of film thinning in a complicated manner through the coupling parameter R = (ρ Aμ A/ρ Bμ B) 1 2 . Experimental observations that normal drop circulation enhances thinning, whereas reversed drop circulation can cause thickening, are predicted theoretically for the first time. Films much more viscous than their surroundings are found to thin faster than the converse case, a conclusion at odds with offhand intuition but substantiated experimentally; both classes of systems behave differently, often qualitatively so, from predictions of hydrodynamically decoupled systems, and in particular film thinning rates are generally faster because of less resistance to drainage, although the limit of vanishing R does recover the special case of Reynolds' model. For short times, films are shown analytically to thin more rapidly if there is initially outward film motion and normal drop circulation, but with decreasing effectiveness as R increases, in contrast to the effect of R for intermediate and longer times; if there is initially inward film motion, thickening tendencies are enhanced by reverse drop circulation but with decreasing effectiveness as R increases. These and other detailed conclusions, most predicted theoretically for the first time, are not only in qualitative agreement with experimental observations, they are in quantitative agreement with available data.