Showing papers on "Laplace pressure published in 1978"

An analytical solution of the laplace equation for the shape of liquid surfaces near a stripwise heterogeneous wall

Abstract: There is a special case of liquid in contact with a heterogeneous solid wall for which the Laplace equation of capillarity in three dimensions can be integrated analytically to obtain the exact shape of the liquid surface. It is the case when the liquid surface is minimal and periodic, the wall being plane and consisting of alternating parallel strips of two different materials. The solution presented is based on the method of conformal mapping. By examination of the results the classical theory of capillarity is shown to suffer a high curvature breakdown which occurs at the ends of the four-phase (solid-solid-liquid-vapor) lines. The apparent need to consider the role of line tension in the study of contact angle hysteresis is discussed.