Salez Thomas, McGraw Joshua D, Cormier Sara L, Bäumchen Oliver, Dalnoki-Veress Kari, Raphaël Elie
Laboratoire de Physico-Chimie Théorique, UMR CNRS Gulliver, ESPCI, Paris, France.
Eur Phys J E Soft Matter. 2012 Nov;35(11):114. doi: 10.1140/epje/i2012-12114-x. Epub 2012 Nov 12.
We report on the numerical implementation of thin-film equations that describe the capillary-driven evolution of viscous films, in two-dimensional configurations. After recalling the general forms and features of these equations, we focus on two particular cases inspired by experiments: the leveling of a step at the free surface of a polymer film, and the leveling of a polymer droplet over an identical film. In each case, we first discuss the long-term self-similar regime reached by the numerical solution before comparing it to the experimental profile. The agreement between theory and experiment is excellent, thus providing a versatile probe for nanorheology of viscous liquids in thin-film geometries.
