The Unsteady Motion of Three Phase Contact Lines

Abstract

When two fluids meet at a solid surface a three phase contact line is formed. The motion of contact lines is of crucial importance in many different natural phenomena and industrial processes, for example multiphase flow in porous media, multiphase flow metering and industrial coating processes. Most work on moving contact lines has concentrated on steady motion at low Reynolds number (Cox, 1986). In this paper, we consider the unsteady motion of a contact line at high Reynolds number. We shall consider only inviscid fluids, although it is clear that one of the next steps is to consider the effect of viscosity.