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Film spreading from a miscible drop on a deep liquid layer

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 September 2017

Raj Dandekar ,
Anurag Pant  and
Baburaj A. Puthenveettil Open the ORCID record for Baburaj A. Puthenveettil [Opens in a new window]
Raj Dandekar
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, 600036, India
Anurag Pant
Affiliation:
Department of Applied Mechanics, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, 600036, India
Baburaj A. Puthenveettil*
Affiliation:
Department of Applied Mechanics, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, 600036, India
*
†Email address for correspondence: apbraj@iitm.ac.in
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Abstract

We study the spreading of a film from ethanol–water droplets of radii $0.9~\text{mm}<r_{d}<1.1~\text{mm}$ on the surface of a deep water layer for various concentrations of ethanol in the drop. Since the drop is lighter ($\unicode[STIX]{x1D709}=\unicode[STIX]{x1D70C}_{l}/\unicode[STIX]{x1D70C}_{d}>1.03$), it stays at the surface of the water layer during the spreading of the film from the drop; the film is more viscous than the underlying water layer since $\unicode[STIX]{x1D712}=\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}_{l}/\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}_{d}>0.38$. Inertial forces are not dominant in the spreading since the Reynolds numbers based on the film thickness $h_{f}$ are in the range $0.02<Re_{f}<1.4$. The spreading is surface-tension-driven since the film capillary numbers are in the range $0.0005<Ca_{f}<0.0069$ and the drop Bond numbers are in the range $0.19<Bo_{d}<0.56$. We observe that, when the drop is brought in contact with the water surface, capillary waves propagate from the point of contact, followed by a radially expanding, thin circular film of ethanol–water mixture. The film develops instabilities at some radius to form outward-moving fingers at its periphery while it is still expanding, till the expansion stops at a larger radius. The film then retracts, during which time the remaining major part of the drop, which stays at the centre of the expanding film, thins and develops holes and eventually mixes completely with water. The radius of the expanding front of the film scales as $r_{f}\sim t^{1/4}$ and shows a dependence on the concentration of ethanol in the drop as well as on $r_{d}$, and is independent of the layer height $h_{l}$. Using a balance of surface tension and viscous forces within the film, along with a model for the fraction of the drop that forms the thin film, we obtain an expression for the dimensionless film radius $r_{f}^{\ast }=r_{f}/r_{d}$, in the form $fr_{f}^{\ast }={t_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}d}^{\ast }}^{1/4}$, where $t_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}d}^{\ast }=t/t_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}d}$, with the time scale $t_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}d}=\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}_{d}r_{d}/\unicode[STIX]{x0394}\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}$ and $f$ is a function of $Bo_{d}$. Similarly, we show that the dimensionless velocity of film spreading, $Ca_{d}=u_{f}\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}_{d}/\unicode[STIX]{x0394}\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}$, scales as $4f^{4}Ca_{d}={r_{f}^{\ast }}^{-3}$.

JFM classification

Drops and Bubbles: Drops Interfacial Flows (free surface): Interfacial Flows (free surface) Interfacial Flows (free surface): Thin films
Type
Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 829 , 25 October 2017 , pp. 304 - 327
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Copyright
© 2017 Cambridge University Press 

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Dandekar et al. supplementary material movie 1

Top view of the coalescence and film spreading of an ethanol drop of 100% concentration and radius rd=0.97 mm mixes with a water layer at Delta sigma =. 31.9 mN m -1. The area of imaging is of size 87.75 mm x 35.50 mm. The movie is at 25fps of the phenomena that was captured at 800fps

Download Dandekar et al. supplementary material movie 1(Video)
Video 10.2 MB

Dandekar et al. supplementary material movie 2

Side view of the coalescence and film spreading when an ethanol drop of 100% concentration and radius rd=1.1 mm mixes with a water layer of height hl=5 cm. The movie is at 25 FPS of the phenomena that was captured at 2000FPS.

Download Dandekar et al. supplementary material movie 2(Video)
Video 9.9 MB