Thinning and rupture of a thin liquid film on a heated surface. Progress report, October 1, 1989--September 30, 1990

Abstract

The objective of this work continues to be the study of dynamics, stability, and rupture (including contact line motions) of thin liquid films, especially with heat and/or mass transfer. Following the publication of a comprehensive paper on thin-film stability and rupture, taking into account evaporation (condensation), thermocapillarity, surface tension, vapor recoil, van der Waals forces, and mass loss (gain), two follow-up papers have appeared. The first examines the conditions for a non-uniformly-heated liquid film to rupture, owing to thermocapillarity, while the second reports experimental results in excellent agreement with the theory on non-isothermal free-surface problems. Another paper extends some previous results to the case where the viscosity of the liquid is a function of temperature. By proper rescaling, it is shown that the evolution equation can be transformed into the constant-viscosity case, so that previous results can be applied directly. Another paper considers the nonlinear growth, steepening, and wavebreaking of an isothermal thin liquid film draining down an inclined plate. The competition between mean flow and evaporation gives important morphological changes that control the heat-transfer process in the wavy regime. A number of other results were obtained. 9 refs.