Dynamics of thin fluid films controlled by thermal fluctuations

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-10-2015

Abstract

We consider the influence of thermal fluctuations on the dynamics of thin fluid films in two regimes. Working within the stochastic lubrication approximation, we generalize the results on (stochastic) similarity solutions [B. Davidovitch, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 244505 (2005)] that focused on surface tension dominated regime, to gravity-driven relaxation. In particular, we verify numerically the validity of the results in gravity-dominated regime, and find that fluctuations enhance spreading, as in surface tension dominated regime, even in the presence of a faster deterministic relaxation. Considering further the novel case of fluid droplet spreading driven by surface tension and van der Waals forces, our simulations show that the presence of noise affects the value of droplet contact angle.

Identifier

84928251873 (Scopus)

Publication Title

European Physical Journal Special Topics

External Full Text Location

https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2015-02367-1

e-ISSN

19516401

ISSN

19516355

First Page

379

Last Page

387

Issue

2

Volume

224

Grant

1235710

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