Session Cd - Interfacial & Thin-Film Instabilities.
ORAL session, Sunday, November 23
304, Moscone Center
We investigate two-dimensional and axisymmetric van-der-Waals rupture of a thin liquid film on a solid substrate in the long-wavelength limit. Numerical solutions to the lubrication equations show that the dynamics close to rupture is determined by both surface tension and van-der-Waals disjoining pressure. The equations possess a countably infinite number of similarity solutions, in each of which the horizontal lengthscale decreases like t^2/5 and the film thickness decreases like t^1/5, where t is the time remaining to rupture. Only one of these solutions is thought to be dynamically stable and realized in practice.