Numerical studies of the fingering phenomena for the thin film equation

Yibao Li, Hyun Geun Lee, Daeki Yoon, Woonjae Hwang, Suyeon Shin, Youngsoo Ha, Junseok Kim

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

We present a new interpretation of the fingering phenomena of the thin liquid film layer through numerical investigations. The governing partial differential equation is ht + (h2-h3)x = -∇·(h3∇Δh), which arises in the context of thin liquid films driven by a thermal gradient with a counteracting gravitational force, where h = h(x, y, t) is the liquid film height. A robust and accurate finite difference method is developed for the thin liquid film equation. For the advection part (h2-h3)x, we use an implicit essentially non-oscillatory (ENO)-type scheme and get a good stability property. For the diffusion part -∇·(h3∇Δh), we use an implicit Euler's method. The resulting nonlinear discrete system is solved by an efficient nonlinear multigrid method. Numerical experiments indicate that higher the film thickness, the faster the film front evolves. The concave front has higher film thickness than the convex front. Therefore, the concave front has higher speed than the convex front and this leads to the fingering phenomena.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1358-1372
Number of pages15
JournalInternational Journal for Numerical Methods in Fluids
Volume67
Issue number11
DOIs
StatePublished - 20 Dec 2011

Keywords

  • Fingering instability
  • Finite difference
  • Marangoni stress
  • Nonlinear diffusion equation
  • Nonlinear multigrid method
  • Thin film

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