Instability and Frontal Breakup in Super-Meniscus Films

Abstract

Surface tension gradients created by a nonuniform temperature distribution in athin liquid film can force vertical spreading beyond the equilibrium meniscus [1]. Experiments designed to probe the flow behavior of super-meniscus films have shown that the leading edge can either spread uniformly with complete surface coverage or become corrugated and breakupinto long slender rivulets. We show that within linear stability analysis, both the conditions for unstable flow and the most unstable wavelength compare favorably with recent experiments reported in the literature.