Surface tension

About: Surface tension is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 25410 publications have been published within this topic receiving 695471 citations.

Fingering instability in thin wetting films

Abstract: We report on a new hydrodynamic instability which occurs at the spreading edge of a thin wetting film. A drop of aqueous surfactant solution placed on a glass surface moistened with a thin layer of water spreads by propagating fingers, whose velocity and shape depend on the thickness of the ambient water layer and on the surfactant concentration. The two fluids are miscible and show negligible viscosity difference, ruling out a Saffman-Taylor instability. We propose that the Marangoni effect, which is fluid flow induced by gradients in surface tension, drives the instability.

The stress driven instability in elastic crystals: Mathematical models and physical manifestations

Abstract: Equilibrium equations and stability conditions for the simple deformable elastic body are derived by means of considering a minimum of the static energy principle. The energy is supposed to be sum of the volume (elastic) and the surface terms. The ability to change relative positions of different material particles is taken into account, and appropriate natural definitions of the first and second variations of the energy are introduced and calculated explicitly. Considering the case of negligible magnitude of the surface tension, we establish that an equilibrium state of a nonhydrostatically stressed simple elastic body (of any physically reasonable elastic energy potential and of any symmetry) possessing any small smooth part of free surface is always unstable with respect to relative transfer of the material particles along the surface. Surface tension suppresses the mentioned instability with respect to sufficiently short disturbances of the boundary surface and thus can probably provide local smoothness of the equilibrium shape of the crystal. We derive explicit formulas for critical wavelength for the simplest models of the internal and surface energies and for the simplest equilibrium configurations. We also formulate the simplest problem of mathematical physics, revealing peculiarities and difficulties of the problem of equilibrium shape of elastic crystals, and discuss possible manifestations of the above-mentioned instability in the problems of crystal growth, materials science, fracture, physical chemistry, and low-temperature physics.

Thermodynamic properties of HFO-1234yf (2,3,3,3-tetrafluoropropene)

Abstract: Measurements of the thermodynamic properties of HFO-1234yf were conducted. The critical temperature T C , critical density ρ C , and critical pressure P C , were measured by the visual observation of the meniscus disappearance, and were determined to be 367.85 ± 0.01 K, 478 ± 3 kg/m 3 , and 3382 ± 3 kPa, respectively. Vapor pressures were measured by a batch-type calorimeter with a metal-bellows in the temperature range from 310 K to 360 K and correlated by the Wagner-type equation. Surface tensions were measured by the differential capillary-rise method in the temperature range from 273 K to 340 K and correlated by the van der-Waals type equation. The acentric factor was determined to be 0.280 with the vapor pressure correlation. Based on the critical parameters and acentric factor, saturated vapor and liquid densities were estimated by the Peng–Robinson equation and the Hankinson–Thomson equation, respectively. The heat of vaporization was also calculated from the Clausius–Clapeyron equation.