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Experiments on Marangoni spreading – evidence of a new type of interfacial instability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2023

Xue Ma Open the ORCID record for Xue Ma [Opens in a new window] ,
Yao Huang ,
Yanru Huang ,
Zhanwei Liu Open the ORCID record for Zhanwei Liu [Opens in a new window] ,
Zhenzhen Li Open the ORCID record for Zhenzhen Li [Opens in a new window]  and
Jerzy M. Floryan Open the ORCID record for Jerzy M. Floryan [Opens in a new window]
Xue Ma
Affiliation:
School of Aerospace Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, 5th ZhongGuanCunNan Street, Haidian District, Beijing 100081, PR China
Yao Huang
Affiliation:
School of Aerospace Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, 5th ZhongGuanCunNan Street, Haidian District, Beijing 100081, PR China
Yanru Huang
Affiliation:
School of Aerospace Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, 5th ZhongGuanCunNan Street, Haidian District, Beijing 100081, PR China
Zhanwei Liu*
Affiliation:
School of Aerospace Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, 5th ZhongGuanCunNan Street, Haidian District, Beijing 100081, PR China
Zhenzhen Li*
Affiliation:
School of Aerospace Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, 5th ZhongGuanCunNan Street, Haidian District, Beijing 100081, PR China
Jerzy M. Floryan
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Western University, London, Ontario N6A 5B9, Canada
*
†Email addresses for correspondence: liuzw@bit.edu.cn, zhenzhenli@bit.edu.cn
†Email addresses for correspondence: liuzw@bit.edu.cn, zhenzhenli@bit.edu.cn
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Abstract

Marangoni spreading on thin films is widely observed in nature and applied in industry. It has serious implications for airway drug delivery, especially in surfactant displacement therapy. This paper reports the results of experimental investigations of a surfactant-laden droplet spreading on films made of more viscous Newtonian fluids as well as on films made of viscoelastic fluids. The experiments used particle seeding, the transmission-speckle method and particle tracking velocimetry (PTV) to determine the deformation of the film–droplet interface and to measure velocity fields. Radially aligned patterns were observed on Newtonian films. Similar patterns, but with much smaller wavenumber, were observed on viscoelastic films in combination with rapid azimuthal variations of the film thickness. The Saffman–Taylor instability at the film–droplet interface explains the formation of patterns on a more viscous Newtonian film, and their onset requires exceeding the critical capillary number. The pattern formation on viscoelastic films is correlated with an instability at the film–droplet–air contact line when the liquid is expelled radially by the spreading droplet. PTV revealed azimuthal variations of the velocity field in the vicinity of the contact line. The observed contact line instability is different from previously reported fingering instabilities of Newtonian thin films. A simple scaling law accounting for the Marangoni-stress-induced elastic shear deformation is proposed to describe the flow field in the patterns formed in the viscoelastic films.

JFM classification

Interfacial Flows (free surface): Contact lines Interfacial Flows (free surface): Thin films Non-Newtonian Flows: Viscoelasticity
Type
JFM Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 958 , 10 March 2023 , A33
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Ma et al. Supplementary Movie 1

Spreading of a surfactant-laden aqueous droplet on a more viscous viscoelastic (left) and Newtonian (right) thin liquid film. Both films have similar viscosities (22.7 mPa.s for the viscoelastic Boger 2 fluid, 21.5 mPa.s for the Newtonian PEG solution, fluid properties are given in Table 1). Rib-like structures characterized by low wavenumbers are formed at the Boger film - droplet interface (left), whereas radially aligned structures characterized by large wavenumbers are formed at the Newtonian film-droplet interface (right). Many very small fingers form at the end of spreading on Boger film (left) after deposition of a second surfactant-laden droplet.

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