The Navier-Stokes equations and boundary conditions for viscous fluids of capillary size are formulated in curvilinear coordinates associated with a geometry of the fluid-gas interface. As a result, the fluid dynamics of drops and menisci can be described taking into account an influence of gravitational forces and flows on the surface shape. This gives a convenient basis for respective numerical studies. Estimations of the effects are presented for the case of an evaporating sessile drop.
We present a comprehensive study of the dispersion of capillary waves with finite amplitude, based on direct numerical simulations. The presented results show an increase of viscous attenuation and, consequently, a smaller frequency of capillary waves with increasing initial wave amplitude. Interestingly, however, the critical wavenumber as well as the wavenumber at which the maximum frequency is observed remain the same for a given two-phase system, irrespective of the wave amplitude. By devising an empirical correlation that describes the effect of the wave amplitude on the viscous attenuati…
We theoretically examine the widespread hypothesis of an electro-viscous origin of the increase in apparent viscosity observed in recent experiments on capillary filling of nanochannels. Including Debye-layer corrections to the hydraulic resistance we find that the apparent viscosity reaches a maximum in the mesoscopic regime where the channel height (or more generally the hydraulic radius) is comparable to the screening length. However, for realistic estimates of central parameters, we find that the electro-viscous contribution to the apparent viscosity is at most a 1% effect.
This work presents a detailed study of the dispersion of capillary waves with small amplitude in viscous fluids using an analytically derived solution to the initial value problem of a small-amplitude capillary wave as well as direct numerical simulation. A rational parametrization for the dispersion of capillary waves in the underdamped regime is proposed, including predictions for the wavenumber of critical damping based on a harmonic oscillator model. The scaling resulting from this parametrization leads to a self-similar solution of the frequency dispersion of capillary waves that covers t…
This paper presents the second-order perturbation theory of the Navier-Stokes equations for free surface flows, with the wave amplitude considered as the perturbation parameter. Gravity-capillary surface waves in incompressible viscous fluids are subjected. The results provide a systematic derivation of a nonlinear surface wave equation that fully takes into account dispersion, while nonlinearity is included in the leading order. However, the presence of infinitely many overdamped modes has been neglected, and only the two least damped modes are considered. Finally, to describe the elevations …
We derive a general integrodifferential equation for the transient behaviour of small-amplitude capillary waves on the planar surface of a viscous fluid in the presence of the Marangoni effect. The equation is solved for an insoluble surfactant solution in concentration below the critical micelle concentration (cmc) undergoing convective-diffusive surface transport. The special case of a diffusion-driven surfactant is considered near the the critical damping wavelength. The Marangoni effect is shown to contribute to the overall damping mechanism and a first-order term correction to the critica…
We discuss the impact of viscosity on nonlinear propagation of surface waves at the interface of air and a fluid of large depth. After a survey of the available approximations of the dispersion relation, we propose to modify the hydrodynamic boundary conditions to model both short and long waves. From them, we derive a nonlinear Schrödinger equation where both linear and nonlinear parts are modified by dissipation and show that the former plays the main role in both gravity and capillary-gravity waves while, in most situations, the latter represents only small corrections. This provides a just…
We propose a numerical approach to regularize the contact line singularity appearing in the computation of viscous capillary-gravity waves with moving contact line in cylindrical containers. The linearized Navier-Stokes equations are complemented by a macroscopic Navier-like slip condition on the container side wall, with a depth-varying slip-length bridging a free-slip condition at the contact line to a no-slip condition further away from the meniscus. In accordance with suggestions from the literature, this characteristic penetration depth is chosen as the typical Stokes layer thickness pert…
The aim of this study is to derive accurate models for quantities characterizing the dynamics of droplets of non-vanishing viscosity in capillaries. In particular, we propose models for the uniform-film thickness separating the droplet from the tube walls, for the droplet front and rear curvatures and pressure jumps, and for the droplet velocity in a range of capillary numbers, $Ca$, from $10^{-4}$ to $1$ and inner-to-outer viscosity ratios, $λ$, from $0$, i.e. a bubble, to high viscosity droplets. Theoretical asymptotic results obtained in the limit of small capillary number are combined with…
The role of surface tension and wettability in the dynamics of air-liquid interfaces during immiscible fluid displacement flows in capillary tube driven by pressure has been investigated. The contact angle and capillary number drive the force wetting processes which is controlled by the balance between the capillary and the viscous lubrication forces. The dynamic wetting condition with the critical capillary number is studied analytically and validated experimentally, which demonstrates that the critical capillary number is associated with the contact angle, slip length and capillary radius.
The capillary levelling of cylindrical holes in viscous polystyrene films was studied using atomic force microscopy as well as quantitative analytical scaling arguments based on thin film theory and self-similarity. The relaxation of the holes was shown to consist of two different time regimes: an early regime where opposing sides of the hole do not interact, and a late regime where the hole is filling up. For the latter, the self-similar asymptotic profile was derived analytically and shown to be in excellent agreement with experimental data. Finally, a binary system of two holes in close pro…
We study the breakup of confined fluid threads at low flow rates to understand instability mechanisms. To determine the critical conditions between the earlier quasi-stable necking stage and the later unstable collapse stage, simulations and experiments are designed to operate at an extremely low flow rate. Critical mean radii at neck centres are identified by the stop-flow method for elementary microfluidic configurations. Analytical investigations reveal two distinct origins of capillary instabilities. One is the gradient of capillary pressure induced by the confinements of geometry and exte…
We investigate the interplay of thermophoretic force and interfacial tension on the capillary filling dynamics of a Newtonian nanofluid in a microchannel. In our model, we also consider an intricate thermofluidic coupling by taking the temperature dependence of viscosity aptly into account. This, in turn, determines the evolution of the viscous resistive force as the capillary front progresses, and presents an involved inter-connection between the driving thermophoretic force and the viscous resistive force. The two distinct regimes of particle transport in a fluid medium, delineated by partic…
We study immiscible two-phase flow of a compressible and an incompressible fluid inside a capillary tube of varying radius under steady-state conditions. The incompressible fluid is Newtonian and the compressible fluid is an inviscid ideal gas. The surface tension associated with the interfaces between the two fluids introduces capillary forces that vary along the tube due to the variation in the tube radius. The interplay between effects due to the capillary forces and the compressibility results in a set of properties that are different from incompressible two-phase flow. As the fluids move …
{Three-wave resonant interactions constitute an essential nonlinear mechanism coupling capillary surface waves. In a previous work, Haudin et al. [Phys. Rev E 93, 043110 (2016)], we have characterized experimentally the generation by this mechanism of a daughter wave, whose amplitude saturates due to the viscous dissipation. Here, we show experimentally the generation of a daughter wave verifying the resonant conditions, but not the dispersion relation.} By modeling the response of the free surface at the lowest nonlinear order, we explain this observation as a forced interaction. {The bandwid…
We calculate the average volumetric flux versus pressure drop of bubbles moving in a single capillary tube with varying diameter, finding a square-root relation from mapping the flow equations onto that of a driven overdamped pendulum. The calculation is based on a derivation of the equation of motion of a bubble train from considering the capillary forces and the entropy production associated with the viscous flow. We also calculate the configurational probability of the positions of the bubbles.
Capillary ripples on thin viscous films are important features of coating and lubrication flows. Here we present experiments based on Digital Holographic Microscopy, measuring the morphology of capillary ripples ahead of a viscous drop spreading on a prewetted surface with a nanoscale resolution. Our experiments reveal that upon increasing the spreading velocity, the amplitude of the ripples first increases and subsequently decreases. Above a critical spreading velocity, the ripples even disappear completely and this transition is accompanied by a divergence of the ripple wavelength. These obs…
We present a semi-analytical theory for the acoustic fields and particle-trapping forces in a viscous fluid inside a capillary tube with arbitrary cross section and ultrasound actuation at the walls. We find that the acoustic fields vary axially on a length scale proportional to the square root of the quality factor of the two-dimensional (2D) cross-section resonance mode. This axial variation is determined analytically based on the numerical solution to the eigenvalue problem in the 2D cross section. The analysis is developed in two steps: First, we generalize a recently published expression …
The agglomeration of particles caused by the formation of capillary bridges has a decisive impact on the transport properties of a variety of at a first sight very different systems such as capillary suspensions, fluidized beds in chemical reactors, or even sand castles. Here, we study the connection between the microstructure of the agglomerates and the rheology of fluidized suspensions using a coupled lattice Boltzmann and discrete element method approach. We address the influence of the shear rate, the secondary fluid surface tension, and the suspending liquid viscosity. The presence of cap…
We report on the experimental study of axisymmetric gravity-capillary standing waves generated by a vertically vibrating ring partially immersed into a fluid. Different regimes of standing waves are highlighted at the basin center depending on the forcing parameters: linear, nonlinear, and ejection regimes. For weak forcing, the standing waves display a resonant response, close to a natural frequency of the circular basin, predicted by the linear theory. For stronger forcing, we observed that the experimental spatial profile of standing waves breaks the up-down symmetry, and is well described …
Thin viscous liquid films driven by capillarity are well described in the lubrication theory through the thin film equation. In this article, we present an analytical solution of this equation for a particular initial profile: a stepped perturbation. This initial condition allows a linearization of the problem making it amenable to Fourier analysis. The solution is obtained and characterized. As for a temperature step in the heat equation, self-similarity of the first kind of the full evolution is demonstrated and a long-term expression for the excess free energy is derived. In addition, hydro…
A variational approach has been recently employed to determine the ideal time-dependent injection rate Q(t) that minimizes fingering formation when a fluid is injected in a Hele-Shaw cell filled with another fluid of much greater viscosity. However, such a calculation is approximate in nature, since it has been performed by assuming a high capillary number regime. In this work, we go one step further, and utilize a Hamiltonian formulation to obtain an analytical exact solution for Q(t), now valid for arbitrary values of the capillary number. Moreover, this Hamiltonian scheme is applied to calc…
Fluid dynamics video of an evaporating sessile drop of capillary size is presented. The corresponding simulation represents the description taking into account jointly time dependent hydrodynamics, vapor diffusion and thermal conduction in an evaporating sessile drop. The fluid convection in the drop is driven by Marangoni forces associated with the temperature dependence of the surface tension. For the first time the evolution of the vortex structure in the drop during an evaporation process is obtained.
We study low-speed flows of a highly compressible, single-phase fluid in the presence of gravity, for example in a regime appropriate for modeling recent space-shuttle experiments on fluids near the liquid-vapor critical point. In the equations of motion, we include forces due to capillary stresses that arise from a contribution made by strong density gradients to the free energy. We derive formally simplified sets of equations in a low-speed limit analogous to the zero Mach number limit in combustion theory. When viscosity is neglected and gravity is weak, the simplified system includes: a hy…
We find a new class of solutions that are traveling waves on the boundary of two--dimensional droplet of ideal fluid. We assume that the free surface is subject only to the force of surface tension, and the fluid flow is potential. We use the canonical Hamiltonian variables discovered in the work of V.E. Zakharov in 1968, and conformally map lower complex plane to the interior of a fluid droplet. We write the equations in the form originally discovered in A.I. Dyachenko in (2001) for infinitely deep water, and adapted to bounded fluid in the work of S.A. Dyachenko (2019). The new class of solu…
We study drop impacts on immiscible viscous liquid pool and investigate the formation of droplet surface craters using experimental and theoretical analysis. We attribute the formation of air craters to the rapid deceleration of the droplet due to viscous drag force. The droplet response to the external impulsive decelerating force induces oscillatory modes on the surface exposed to the air forming capillary waves that superimpose to form air craters of various shapes and sizes. We introduce a non-dimensional parameter ($Γ$), that is, the ratio of drag force to the capillary force acting on th…
The linear spatiotemporal stability properties of axisymmetric laminar capillary jets with fully developed initial velocity profiles are studied for large values of both the Reynolds number, $Re=Q/(π\,a\,ν)$, and the Froude number, $Fr=Q^2/(π^2\,g\,a^5)$, where $a$ is the injector radius, $Q$ the volume flow rate, $ν$ its kinematic viscosity, and $g$ the gravitational acceleration. The downstream development of the basic flow and its stability are addressed with an approximate formulation that takes advantage of the jet slenderness. The base flow is seen to depend on two parameters, namely a S…
We report an experimental and theoretical study of the global stability and nonlinear dynamics of vertical jets of viscous liquid confined in the axial direction due to their impact on a bath of the same liquid. Previous works demonstrated that in the absence of axial confinement the steady liquid thread becomes unstable due to an axisymmetric global mode for values of the flow rate, $Q$, below a certain critical value, $Q_c$, giving rise to oscillations of increasing amplitude that finally lead to a dripping regime (Sauter & Buggisch, J. Fluid Mech., 2005; Rubio-Rubio et al., J. Fluid Mech., …
The moving contact-line problem is of both theoretical and practical interest. The dynamic contact angle changes with the capillary number defined by the contact-line speed, and the correlation also depends on the equilibrium contact angle measured at the static state. This correlation is usually required as an input to the traditional solvers based on the Navier-Stokes-like equations, but it is simulated as an output in the current study using the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) in a displacement process of two-immiscible fluids. The macroscopic theory and the molecular dynamics (MD) simulatio…
This report summarises the results for the numerical simulation of thermocapillary convection in a two-fluid system with a deformable interface. An explicit technique with 3rd order Runge-Kutta method in time, 2nd order ENO for the advection terms, and 2nd order central-differencing for the diffusion terms are employed in the momentum equations for simulating the flow on a staggered grid using a Marker and Cell method. An energy equation is solved numerically and a level-set method is used to implicitly capture the interface. A constant contact angle condition is assumed between the end walls …
Carbonates are highly heterogeneous formations with large variations in pore size distribution and pore space topology, which results in complex multiphase flow behavior. Here we investigate the spontaneous imbibition behavior of fluids in vuggy carbonates. Glass beads of 1.0 mm diameter, with dissolvable inclusions, are sintered to form multiple configurations of heterogeneous vuggy core with variations in matrix porosity, vug size, vug spatial location, and number of vugs. The core fabrication process is repeatable and allows the impact of vug textural properties to be investigated in a cont…
The rebound of droplets impacting a deep fluid bath is studied both experimentally and theoretically. Millimetric drops are generated using a piezoelectric droplet-on-demand generator and normally impact a bath of the same fluid. Measurements of the droplet trajectory and other rebound metrics are compared directly to the predictions of a linear quasi-potential model, as well as fully resolved direct numerical simulations (DNS) of the unsteady Navier-Stokes equations. Both models resolve the time-dependent bath and droplet shapes in addition to the droplet trajectory. In the quasi-potential mo…
We present a systematic study of capillary filling for a binary fluid by using a mesoscopic lattice Boltzmann model for immiscible fluids describing a diffusive interface moving at a given contact angle with respect to the walls. The phenomenological way to impose a given contact angle is analysed. Particular attention is given to the case of complete wetting, that is contact angle equal to zero. Numerical results yield quantitative agreement with the theoretical Washburn law, provided that the correct ratio of the dynamic viscosities between the two fluids is used. Finally, the presence of pr…
We present a fluid dynamics video showing how capillary rafts sink. Small objects trapped at an interface are very common in Nature (insects walking on water, ant rafts, bubbles or pollen at the water-air interface, membranes...) and are found in many multiphase industrial processes. Thanks to Archimedes principle we can easily predict whether an object sinks or floats. But what happens when several small particles are placed at an interface between two fluids. In this case surface tension also plays an important role. These particles self-assemble by capillarity and thus form what we call a "…
The surface of a liquid near a moving contact line is highly curved owing to diverging viscous forces. Thus, microscopic physics must be invoked at the contact line and matched to the hydrodynamic solution farther away. This matching has already been done for a variety of models, but always assuming the limit of vanishing speed. This excludes phenomena of the greatest current interest, in particular the stability of contact lines. Here we extend perturbation theory to arbitrary order and compute finite speed corrections to existing results. We also investigate the impact of the microscopic phy…
We present a novel time-stepping method, called Operator Splitting with Capillary Relaxation (OSCAR), for efficient Volume-Of-Fluid simulations of capillary-dominated two-phase flow. OSCAR uses operator splitting methods to separate the viscous drag and the surface tension forces. Different time-steps are used for the viscous drag steps, controlled by the injection velocity, and for the capillary relaxation steps, controlled by the velocity of capillary waves. Although OSCAR induces an additional numerical error of order 0 in time resulting from the splitting, it is well suited for simulations…
In the above paper an analysis has been carried out to obtain results in the Couette flow of a Newtonian fluid with viscous dissipation and temperature dependent viscosity. The fluid viscosity is an exponential function of temperature. Exact analytical solutions are obtained for the calculation of velocity and temperature. However, there are some fundamental errors in this paper which are presented herein.
Viscous fingering is a well-known hydrodynamic instability that sets in when a less viscous fluid displaces a more viscous fluid. When the two fluids are miscible, viscous fingering introduces disorder in the velocity field and exerts a fundamental control on the rate at which the fluids mix. We present a fluid dynamics video of the mixing process in a viscously unstable flow, generated from a high-resolution numerical simulation using a computational strategy that is stable for arbitrary viscosity ratios. We develop a two-equation dynamic model of concentration variance and mean dissipation r…
We report a local analysis of the flow of foams in two dimensional heterogeneous model porous media. Pressure measurements are combined with direct observation in order to determine simultaneously the effective viscosity and the fraction of trapped gas. Experiments are conducted in the low-quality regime, in a large range of capillary numbers and relative gas flow rates. The effective viscosity is very high (up to a few thousands times that of water) at low capillary numbers and rheology can be described by a decreasing power-law function of the capillary number of exponent ranging from -1 to …
Computations of the breakup of a liquid bridge are used to establish the limits of applicability of similarity solutions derived for different breakup regimes. These regimes are based on particular viscous-inertial balances, that is different limits of the Ohnesorge number $Oh$. To accurately establish the transitions between regimes, the minimum bridge radius is resolved through four orders of magnitude using a purpose-built multiscale finite element method. This allows us to construct a quantitative phase diagram for the breakup phenomenon which includes the appearance of a recently discover…
Based on the generalized kinetic equation for the one-particle distribution function with a small source, the transition from the kinetic to the hydrodynamic description of many-particle systems is performed. The basic feature of this new technique to obtain the hydrodynamic limit is that the latter has been partially incorporated into the kinetic equation itself. The hydrodynamic equations for capillary fluids are derived from the characteristic function for the local moments of the distribution function. The Fick's law appears as a consequence of the transformation law for the hydrodynamic q…
An improved wetting boundary implementation strategy is proposed based on lattice Boltzmann color-gradient model in this paper. In this strategy, an extra interface force condition is demonstrated based on the diffuse interface assumption and is employed in contact line region. It has been validated by three benchmark problems: static droplet wetting on a flat surface and a curved surface, and dynamic capillary filling. Good performances are shown in all three cases. Relied on the strict validation to our scheme, the viscous fingering phenomenon of immiscible fluids displacement in a two-dimen…
We report a technique based on Fresnel diffraction with white illumination that permits the resolution of capillary surface patterns of less than 100 nanometers. We investigate Rayleigh Plateaux like instability on a viscoelastic capillary bridge and show that we can overcome the resolution limit of optical microscopy. The viscoelastic filaments are approximately 20 microns thick at the end of the thinning process when the instability sets in. The wavy distortions grow exponentially in time and the pattern is resolved by an image treatment that is based on an approximation of the measured risi…
Liquids in oil-bearing porous media assume complex shapes that depend on the reservoir characteristics and the wetting properties of the liquid. The wide variation in the geometry of rock formations makes it difficult to accurately predict the capillary pressure of small volumes of liquid and hence the likelihood of being able to move it. Here we consider the situation in which a small volume of liquid surrounds an upright cylinder on a flat substrate and predict the shape that the liquid takes and its capillary pressure. We validate our predictions by comparing with Surface Evolver simulation…
