Variational approach to droplet motion on uneven solid surfaces, including contact line dynamics and evaporation
Gyula I Tóth, David N Sibley, Agnes J Bokányi-Tóth, Dmitri Tseluiko, Andrew J Archer
TLDR
This paper presents a variational approach using Onsager's principle to model droplet motion, contact line dynamics, and evaporation on uneven surfaces.
Key contributions
- Formulates dynamical equations for liquid films and drops on uneven surfaces.
- Incorporates contact line dynamics and evaporation/condensation effects.
- Uses Onsager's variational principle, starting from the system's free energy.
- Applies to study drop pinning and sliding on inclined corrugated surfaces.
Why it matters
This approach provides a robust framework for understanding complex droplet behavior. By starting from free energy, it naturally ensures correct equilibrium properties, crucial for accurate simulations and predictions in microfluidics and surface science.
Original Abstract
We show how dynamical equations for liquid films and drops on uneven surfaces, including contact line dynamics and evaporation/condensation effects, may be formulated as a variational dynamics, generated via Onsager's variational principle. The theory applies in the isothermal overdamped-dynamics limit. We apply this general approach to obtain several well-known results on contact line dynamics and to study drops pinning and sliding on inclined corrugated surfaces. This approach constructs the dynamical equations starting from the free energy of the system and therefore has the advantage that it naturally incorporates the correct equilibrium properties.
📬 Weekly AI Paper Digest
Get the top 10 AI/ML arXiv papers from the week — summarized, scored, and delivered to your inbox every Monday.