Wetting phenomena are ubiquitous in nature and technology. A solid substrate exposed to the environment is almost invariably covered by a layer of fluid material. In this review, the surface forces that lead to wetting are considered, and the equilibrium surface coverage of a substrate in contact with a drop of liquid. Depending on the nature of the surface forces involved, different scenarios for wetting phase transitions are possible; recent progress allows us to relate the critical exponents directly to the nature of the surface forces which lead to the different wetting scenarios. Thermal fluctuation effects, which can be greatly enhanced for wetting of geometrically or chemically structured substrates, and are much stronger in colloidal suspensions, modify the adsorption singularities. Macroscopic descriptions and microscopic theories have been developed to understand and predict wetting behavior relevant to microfluidics and nanofluidics applications. Then the dynamics of wetting is examined. A drop, placed on a substrate which it wets, spreads out to form a film. Conversely, a nonwetted substrate previously covered by a film dewets upon an appropriate change of system parameters. The hydrodynamics of both wetting and dewetting is influenced by the presence of the three-phase contact line separating "wet" regions from those that are either dry or covered by a microscopic film only. Recent theoretical, experimental, and numerical progress in the description of moving contact line dynamics are reviewed, and its relation to the thermodynamics of wetting is explored. In addition, recent progress on rough surfaces is surveyed. The anchoring of contact lines and contact angle hysteresis are explored resulting from surface inhomogeneities. Further, new ways to mold wetting characteristics according to technological constraints are discussed, for example, the use of patterned surfaces, surfactants, or complex fluids.

/pdf/wetting-and-spreading-56ditqbfmj.pdf

Wetting and Spreading

The review deals with drop impacts on thin liquid layers and dry surfaces. The impacts resulting in crown formation are referred to as splashing. Crowns and their propagation are discussed in detail, as well as some additional kindred, albeit nonsplashing, phenomena like drop spreading and deposition, receding (recoil), jetting, fingering, and rebound. The review begins with an explanation of various practical motivations feeding the interest in the fascinating phenomena of drop impact, and the above-mentioned topics are then considered in their experimental, theoretical, and computational aspects.

Drop Impact Dynamics: Splashing, Spreading, Receding, Bouncing ...

The numerical simulation of flows with interfaces and free-surface flows is a vast topic, with applications to domains as varied as environment, geophysics, engineering, and fundamental physics. In engineering, as well as in other disciplines, the study of liquid-gas interfaces is important in combustion problems with liquid and gas reagents. The formation of droplet clouds or sprays that subsequently burn in combustion chambers originates in interfacial instabilities, such as the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability. What can numerical simulations do to improve our understanding of these phenomena? The limitations of numerical techniques make it impossible to consider more than a few droplets or bubbles. They also force us to stay at low Reynolds or Weber numbers, which prevent us from finding a direct solution to the breakup problem. However, these methods are potentially important. First, the continuous improvement of computational power (or, what amounts to the same, the drop in megaflop price) continuously extends the range of affordable problems. Second, and more importantly, the phenomena we consider often happen on scales of space and time where experimental visualization is difficult or impossible. In such cases, numerical simulation may be a useful prod to the intuition of the physicist, the engineer, or the mathematician. A typical example of interfacial flow is the collision between two liquid droplets. Finding the flow involves the study not only of hydrodynamic fields in the air and water phases but also of the air-water interface. This latter part

Direct numerical simulation of free-surface and interfacial flow

Surface-tension-driven flows and, in particular, their tendency to decay spontaneously into drops have long fascinated naturalists, the earliest systematic experiments dating back to the beginning of the 19th century. Linear stability theory governs the onset of breakup and was developed by Rayleigh, Plateau, and Maxwell. However, only recently has attention turned to the nonlinear behavior in the vicinity of the singular point where a drop separates. The increased attention is due to a number of recent and increasingly refined experiments, as well as to a host of technological applications, ranging from printing to mixing and fiber spinning. The description of drop separation becomes possible because jet motion turns out to be effectively governed by one-dimensional equations, which still contain most of the richness of the original dynamics. In addition, an attraction for physicists lies in the fact that the separation singularity is governed by universal scaling laws, which constitute an asymptotic solution of the Navier-Stokes equation before and after breakup. The Navier-Stokes equation is thus continued uniquely through the singularity. At high viscosities, a series of noise-driven instabilities has been observed, which are a nested superposition of singularities of the same universal form. At low viscosities, there is rich scaling behavior in addition to aesthetically pleasing breakup patterns driven by capillary waves. The author reviews the theoretical development of this field alongside recent experimental work, and outlines unsolved problems.

/pdf/nonlinear-dynamics-and-breakup-of-free-surface-flows-2oabav2z0g.pdf

Nonlinear dynamics and breakup of free-surface flows

Jets, ie collimated streams of matter, occur from the microscale up to the large-scale structure of the universe Our focus will be mostly on surface tension effects, which result from the cohesive properties of liquids Paradoxically, cohesive forces promote the breakup of jets, widely encountered in nature, technology and basic science, for example in nuclear fission, DNA sampling, medical diagnostics, sprays, agricultural irrigation and jet engine technology Liquid jets thus serve as a paradigm for free-surface motion, hydrodynamic instability and singularity formation leading to drop breakup In addition to their practical usefulness, jets are an ideal probe for liquid properties, such as surface tension, viscosity or non-Newtonian rheology They also arise from the last but one topology change of liquid masses bursting into sprays Jet dynamics are sensitive to the turbulent or thermal excitation of the fluid, as well as to the surrounding gas or fluid medium The aim of this review is to provide a unified description of the fundamental and the technological aspects of these subjects

Physics of liquid jets

[Received on ] Thixotropic yield stress fluids have a yield stress and viscosity which change slowly over time as the fluid undergoes structural changes. This article reviews recent work which shows how such behavior can arise as a limit of viscoelastic flow when a relaxation time becomes large. The large relaxation time introduces a small parameter which can be used as a basis for singular perturbation studies. A simple prototype for a viscoelastic model will be used to illustrate the analysis. We review the behavior in startup of shear flow, oscillatory shear flow and elongational flow and identify potential directions for future research.

Thixotropy in yield stress fluids as a limit of viscoelasticity

Boundary feedback schemes for stabilizing flexural vibrations in a linear viscoelastic beam are studied. It is shown that in the Euler-Bernoulli model an arbitrarily small feedback delay can cause unbounded vibrations with arbitrarily large exponential growth rates. For the Timoshenko beam, in the purely elastic case, a contrasting result is given, and formulas for decay rates of high frequency modes are developed for the case of no feedback delay. Numerical results for various no-delay cases are summarized.

Boundary stabilization of an Euler-Bernoulli beam with viscoelastic damping

A volume of fluid method is developed with a parabolic representation of the interface for the surface tension force (VOFPROST). This three-dimensional transient code is extended to treat viscoelastic liquids with the Oldroyd-B constitutive equation. Simulations of deformation for a Newtonian drop in a viscoelastic medium under shear are reported.

A Viscoelastic VOF-PROST Code for the Study of Drop Deformation

We study the dynamics of a model for thixotropic yield stress fluids which was recently proposed in [1] . This is based on the partially extended convected model (PEC), modified to allow for a non-zero shear stress limit for large shear rates (PECR), and combined with a Newtonian solvent to enable yielding to homogeneous shear flow (PECR-N) under a prescribed shear stress. We define ϵ to be the ratio of retardation time to relaxation time and focus on the limit ϵ → 0. Multiple time scales arise and the solutions are investigated with perturbation methods, in conjunction with direct computation of the full set of equations. Both PEC-N and PECR-N capture the experimentally observed phenomenon that the value of yield stress depends on the observation time. For the PECR-N model, we find transient solutions that are not expected from prior work on the PEC-N model, such as blow-up in finite time on the slow manifold, and yielded time-periodic flow.

The dynamics of a simple model for a thixotropic yield stress fluid

nt ysiThe flow of fluids with different viscosities, subjected an interfacial perturbation, can lead to fingering a migration. Both Refs. 2 and 3 refer to fingers in two dimensional studies, which would correspond to sheets three dimensions. Figure 19 of Ref. 3 shows a sequenc interface positions for initial amplitude 0.05, wave numb a5p/2, Reynolds number R15500, viscosity ratiom50.5, undisturbed interface height l 150.372, and interfacial ten sion parameterT50.01, at times 0, 5, 10, 15, and 20 carried out on a 256 3256 mesh. A region of high curvatur forms, followed by pinching into a series of horizontal drop However, the drops are at the scale of the numerical mes spatial convergence test is reported here, showing that w refined mesh, the drops are replaced by an elongated fin

Yuriko Renardy

Papers

Thixotropy in yield stress fluids as a limit of viscoelasticity

Boundary stabilization of an Euler-Bernoulli beam with viscoelastic damping

A Viscoelastic VOF-PROST Code for the Study of Drop Deformation

The dynamics of a simple model for a thixotropic yield stress fluid

comment on "a numerical study of periodic disturbances on two-layer couette flow" phys. fluids 10, 3056 (1998)