The motion of a bubble of negligible viscosity, such as air, forced down a tube filled with a viscous fluid which wets the walls of the tube has become a classic of the fluid dynamical literature. The differential motion of the bubble and the fluid are determined by the thin film which surrounds the bubble, whose shape and thickness are set by the interplay between gradients in surface tension and viscous shear stresses. Bretherton (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 10, issue 2, 1961, p. 166) provided a first, clear mathematical analysis in the lubrication limit coupled with carefully constructed experimental confirmation of the thin films deposited by a bubble moving in the confining geometry of the capillary tube. Its lasting impact has been not only in the migration of bubbles, but in a host of related fluid dynamical, industrial, biological and environmental processes for which thin lubricating films on the sometimes convoluted geometries of complex microstructures, such as porous media, determine the large-scale behaviour.

We present the results of a combined experimental and theoretical investigation of different fluid sheet structures formed during the impingement of a laminar liquid jet on a vial, with a slightly larger diameter than the jet and filled with the same liquid. The present set-up produces all diverse fluid sheet structures, unlike previous experiments that required a deflector disk resulting in no-slip and no-penetration boundary conditions. The water sheet structures are classified into four regimes; regime I: pre-sheet; regime II: puffing, characterized by the periodic formation and destruction of the upward-rising water sheet, an interesting observation not reported earlier; regime III, steady upward, inverted umbrella-like sheet structures; and regime IV, the formation of downward, umbrella-like sheet structures, which can be either open or closed, classically referred to as ‘water bells’. The water sheet structures observed are governed by the non-dimensional parameters: the ratio of vial diameter to the jet diameter at impact ($X$), the capillary number ($Ca$), the Weber number ($We$) and the Froude number ($Fr$). The parametric spaces $X-Ca$, $X-We$ and $X-Fr$ exhibit the demarcation of the four regimes. A semi-empirical expression for the ejection angle of the liquid sheet, primarily responsible for different shapes, is derived in a control volume that provides a theoretical basis for the identified regime diagrams. The puffing water bells in regime II are found to be quasi-steady as the experimental trajectories are in good agreement with the steady-state theory. The rise time of puffing water bells that determines the puffing frequency has been modelled.

Liquid droplet dynamics are widely used in biological and engineering applications, which contain complex interfacial instabilities and pattern formation such as droplet merging, splitting and transport. This paper studies a class of mean field control formulations for these droplet dynamics, which can be used to control and manipulate droplets in applications. We first formulate the droplet dynamics as gradient flows of free energies in modified optimal transport metrics with nonlinear mobilities. We then design an optimal control problem for these gradient flows. As an example, a lubrication equation for a thin volatile liquid film laden with an active suspension is developed, with control achieved through its activity field. Lastly, we apply the primal–dual hybrid gradient algorithm with high-order finite-element methods to simulate the proposed mean field control problems. Numerical examples, including droplet formation, bead-up/spreading, transport, and merging/splitting on a two-dimensional spatial domain, demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed mean field control mechanism.

We study the stability and dewetting dynamics of a thin free-surface film composed of two miscible liquids placed on a solid substrate. Our study focuses on the development of a self-consistent model such that the mixture concentration influences both free-surface and wetting energies. By assuming a simple relation between these energies and the bulk and surface concentrations, we analyse their effect on the concentration distribution and dewetting down to the equilibrium film thickness determined by the fluid–solid interaction potential. The model, developed within the gradient dynamics formulation, includes the dependence of the free-surface energy on surface concentration leading to the Marangoni effect, while a composition-dependent Hamaker constant describes the wetting energy resulting from the fluid–solid interaction. We analyse the restrictions that must be fulfilled to ensure an equilibrium state for a flat film of a binary fluid. Then, we proceed by studying its linear stability. First, we consider the Marangoni effect while assuming that wetting energy depends only on the fluid thickness. Then, we include a dependence of wetting energy on concentration and study its effects. We find that the linear stability results compare very well with those of numerical simulations of the full nonlinear problem applied to the particular case of a binary melted metal alloy, even close to breakup times. Therefore, in practice, most of the evolution can be studied by using the linear theory, simplifying the problem considerably.

The nonlinear waves in a sheared liquid film on a horizontal plate at small Reynolds numbers are examined by theoretical and numerical approaches. The analysis employs the long-wave approximation along with finite difference schemes. The results show that the surface tension can suppress disturbances and prevent the occurrence of singularities. While the film flow is driven by the shear stress on the interface, its instability highly depends on the magnitude and direction of gravity. Specifically, when the direction of gravity is opposite to the wall-normal direction, perturbations are stabilized by gravity. In contrast, when these two directions are the same, the gravitational force is destabilizing, and stationary travelling waves can exist if a balance is reached between the effects of gravity and surface tension. For the steady solitary waves, there are quasi-periodic oscillations occurring between two stationary points, indicating the presence of heteroclinic trajectories. For periodic waves, the evolutions are sensitive to several parameters and initial disturbances, while one steady-state wave exhibits a sine function-like behaviour.

In confined systems, the entrapment of a gas volume with an equivalent spherical diameter greater than the dimension of the channel can form extended bubbles that obstruct fluid circuits and compromise performance. Notably, in sealed vertical tubes, buoyant long bubbles cannot rise if the inner tube radius is below a critical value near the capillary length. This critical threshold for steady ascent is determined by geometric constraints related to the matching of the upper cap shape with the lubricating film surrounding the elongated part of the bubble. Developing strategies to overcome this threshold and release stuck bubbles is essential for applications involving narrow liquid channels. Effective strategies involve modifying the matching conditions with an external force field to facilitate bubble ascent. However, it is unclear how changes in acceleration conditions affect the motion onset of buoyancy-driven long bubbles. This study investigates the mobility of elongated bubbles in sealed tubes with an inner radius near the critical value inhibiting bubble motion in a vertical setting. Two strategies are explored to tune bubble motion, leveraging variations in axial and transversal accelerations: tube rotation around its axis and tube inclination relative to gravity. By revising the geometrical constraints of the simple vertical setting, the study predicts new thresholds based on rotational speed and tilt angle, respectively, providing forecasts for the bubble rising velocity under modified apparent gravity. Experimental measurements of motion threshold and rising velocity compare well with theoretical developments, thus suggesting practical approaches to control and tune bubble motion in confined environments.

We study liquid plugs in the pulmonary airways based on the two-phase axisymmetric weighted residual integral boundary-layer model of Dietze et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 894, 2020, A17), which was originally developed to study liquid films coating the inner surface of a cylindrical tube in interaction with a core gas flow. The augmented form of this model, which was never applied beyond a proof of concept, allows for the representation of liquid pseudo-plugs. Here, we demonstrate its predictive power vs experiments and direct numerical simulations, in terms of the dynamics of plug formation and the characteristics of developed liquid plugs, such as their shape, flow field, speed and length, as well as the associated wall stresses and their spatial derivatives. In particular, we show that the augmented model allows us to establish a direct continuation path from travelling-wave solutions (TWS) to travelling-plug solutions (TPS). We then apply the model to predict mucus plugs in the conducting zone of the tracheobronchial tree, based on the lung architecture model of Weibel. We proceed by numerical continuation of travelling-state solutions in terms of the airway generation, whereby we impose the wavelength of the linearly most-amplified convective instability (CI) mode or that of the absolute instability (AI) mode. We identify the critical airway generation for liquid-plug formation (TWS/TPS transition), maximum potential for wall-stress-induced epithelial cell damage and CI/AI transition, and investigate how these phenomena are affected by the main control parameters, i.e. airway orientation vs gravity, air flow rate, mucus properties and airway size.

We derive a generalised asymptotic model for the flow of a thin fluid film over an arbitrarily parameterised non-axisymmetric curved substrate surface based on the lubrication approximation. In addition to surface tension, gravity and centrifugal force, our model incorporates the effects of the Coriolis force and disjoining pressure, together with a non-uniform initial condition, which have not been widely considered in existing literature. We use this model to investigate the impact of the Coriolis force and fingering instability on the spreading of a non-axisymmetric spin-coated film at a range of substrate angular velocities, first on a flat substrate, and then on parabolic cylinder- and saddle-shaped curved substrates. We show that, on flat substrates, the Coriolis force has a negligible impact at low angular velocities, and at high angular velocities results in a small deflection of fingers formed at the contact line against the direction of substrate rotation. On curved substrates, we demonstrate that, as the angular velocity is increased, spin-coated films transition from being dominated by gravitational drainage with no fingering to spreading and fingering in the direction with the greatest component of centrifugal force tangent to the substrate surface. For both curved substrates and all angular velocities considered, we show that the film thickness and total wetted substrate area remain similar over time to those on a flat substrate, with the key difference being the shape of the spreading droplet.

When placed at the surface of a volatile liquid, a sphere of hot dense non-volatile material remains suspended until it cools sufficiently. The duration of this ‘inverse Leidenfrost’ phenomenon depends on the Nusselt number $Nu$ of the sphere, itself determined by flow in the film of vapour separating particle and liquid. It is shown that provided the Nusselt number is large, it can be calculated numerically using only the Laplace relation and the equations governing the thin film; patching to a solution for the outer thick film is not necessary. This method is demonstrated by using it to determine $Nu$ for a sphere sufficiently small that in the governing equations, the acceleration due to gravity is negligible except where multiplied by the density of the sphere. Numerical results giving $Nu$ as a function of a dimensionless measure of sphere weight are supplemented with analysis showing that, when the weight is of the order of the maximum supportable by surface tension alone, the film consists of a spherical bubble cap bounded by its contact rim. The solutions for these regions are coupled: although the apparent contact angle $\chi$ for the cap is determined within the rim, its value depends on the flow rate arriving from the cap as well as on the additional evaporation from the rim. The latter acts to reduce $\chi$ from the value it would otherwise have, thereby reducing the thickness of the entire cap. For the example treated here, the value of $Nu$ is doubled by this mechanism.

Free surface flows driven by boundary undulations are observed in many biological phenomena, including the feeding and locomotion of water snails. To simulate the feeding strategy of apple snails, we develop a centimetric robotic undulator that drives a thin viscous film of liquid with the wave speed $V_w$. Our experimental results demonstrate that the behaviour of the net fluid flux $Q$ strongly depends on the Reynolds number $Re$. Specifically, in the limit of vanishing $Re$, we observe that $Q$ varies non-monotonically with $V_w$, which has been successfully rationalised by Pandey et al. (Nat. Commun., vol. 14, no. 1, 2023, p. 7735) with the lubrication model. By contrast, in the regime of finite inertia (${Re} \sim O(1)$), the fluid flux continues to increase with $V_w$ and completely deviates from the prediction of lubrication theory. To explain the inertia-enhanced pumping rate, we build a thin-film, two-dimensional model via the asymptotic expansion in which we linearise the effects of inertia. Our model results match the experimental data with no fitting parameters and also show the connection to the corresponding free surface shapes $h_2$. Going beyond the experimental data, we derive analytical expressions of $Q$ and $h_2$, which allow us to decouple the effects of inertia, gravity, viscosity and surface tension on free surface pumping over a wide range of parameter space.

Liquid bridges are formed when a flowing liquid interacts with multiple parallel fibres, as relevant to heat and mass transfer applications that utilize flow down fibre arrays. We perform a comprehensive experimental study of flowing liquid bridges between two vertical fibres whose spacing is controlled dynamically in our experimental apparatus. The bridge patterns exhibit a regular periodic spacing typical of absolute instability for low flow rates, but become spatially inhomogeneous above a critical flow rate where the base flow is convectively unstable. The shapes of individual bridges and their associated dynamics are measured, as they depend upon the liquid properties, and fibre geometry/spacing. The bridge length scales similarly to static bridges between parallel fibres. The bridge dynamics exhibits a dependence on viscosity and scale with the impedance. A simple energy balance is used to derive a scaling relationship for the bridge velocity that captures the general trend of our experimental data. Finally, we demonstrate that these scalings similarly apply when the fibres are dynamically separated or brought together.

We study the influence of a low-frequency harmonic vibration on the formation of the two-dimensional rolling solitary waves in vertically co-flowing two-layer liquid films. The system consists of two adjacent layers of immiscible fluids with the first layer being sandwiched between a vertical solid plate and the second fluid layer. The solid plate oscillates harmonically in the horizontal direction inducing Faraday waves at the liquid–liquid and liquid–air interfaces. We use a reduced hydrodynamic model derived from the Navier–Stokes equations in the long-wave approximation. Linear stability of the base flow in a flat two-layer film is determined semi-analytically using Floquet theory. We consider sub-millimetre-thick films and focus on the competition between the long-wavelength gravity-driven and finite wavelength Faraday instabilities. In the linear regime, the range of unstable wave vectors associated with the gravity-driven instability broadens at low and shrinks at high vibration frequencies. In nonlinear regimes, we find multiple metastable states characterized by solitary-like travelling waves and short pulsating waves. In particular, we find the range of the vibration parameters at which the system is multistable. In this regime, depending on the initial conditions, the long-time dynamics is dominated either by the fully developed solitary-like waves or by the shorter pulsating Faraday waves.

A phenomenological model is proposed to estimate the initial thickness of the liquid microlayer forming beneath a vapour bubble growing on a solid surface upon nucleate boiling. The model employs an analogy between the microlayer formation and the classic plate withdrawal problem. It calculates the microlayer thickness by considering it as a Landau–Levich film, where the thickness is a function of the meniscus speed and radius of curvature. Given the nearly hemispherical shape of the bubble during the early growth stage when the microlayer is first deposited, we assume that the meniscus speed can be approximated by the bubble expansion rate, and estimate the meniscus curvature using the Rayleigh equations. Unlike previous theories that assume that the bubble radius growth is proportional to the square root of time, the proposed model does not rely on any specific law of growth for vapour bubbles. The model is validated for predicting the microlayer thickness in water and ethanol, showing good agreement with experimental measurements and empirical correlations. Subsequent analyses of the microlayer interface profile address inconsistent reports – some described a wedge-like shape, whereas others reported a slight outward curvature with decreasing thickness in the outer region. This discrepancy is attributed to a reduction in the expansion rate of the microlayer's outer edge, particularly when the bubble reaches its maximum width. Our model provides insights into microlayer dynamics, essential to boiling heat transfer, as the evaporative heat flux through the microlayer is very sensitive to its initial thickness.

We use multiphase direct numerical simulations to identify, analyse and quantify components of wall-normal heat flux distributions in evaporative vertical falling films with surface modifications at industrially relevant conditions. Previous experiments showed a potential increase of the heat transfer rate through the film by up to 100 % using various types of modifications. We show that the modifications induce significant advective heat transport and hypothesise that four synergistic mixing mechanisms are behind the heat transfer rate improvement. Additionally, we examine how the important surface topology parameters, pitch $\hat {p}$ (distance between modifications), height $\hat {h}$ and the liquid Prandtl number $\mathit {Pr}_l$, influence the mode of heat transport and the Nusselt number $\mathit {Nu}$. We show that $\hat {p}/\hat {h} \approx 10$ maximises $\mathit {Nu}$ and that the optimal pitch is related to the recirculation zone length $L_r$ behind the modification. We find that $L_r/\hat {h} \approx 3.5$ and that $\mathit {Nu} \propto \mathit {Pr}_l^{0.42}$ in the investigated parameter ranges. We also show that all our cases on both smooth and modified surfaces have $\mathit {Pe}_l \gg 1$ and collapse well on a line $\mathit {Nu} \propto (\mathit {Pe}_l/\mathit {Re})^{0.35}$. This relation suggests that $\mathit {Nu}$ is governed by the balance of film mixing, thermal resistance and diffusivity, and that the ratio $\mathit {Pe}_l/\mathit {Re}$ can be used to estimate $\mathit {Nu}$. Our methodology and findings extend the knowledge concerning the mechanisms behind the heat transfer improvement due to surface modifications and facilitate guidelines for designing more efficient modified surfaces in industrial evaporators.

The dewetting of thin nanofilms is significantly affected by thermal fluctuations, liquid–solid slip and disjoining pressure, which can be described by lubrication equations augmented by appropriately scaled noise terms, known as stochastic lubrication equations. Here molecular dynamics simulations along with a newly proposed slip-generating method are adopted to study the instability of nanofilms with arbitrary slip. These simulations show that strong-slip dewetting is distinct from weak-slip dewetting by faster growth of perturbations and fewer droplets after dewetting, which cannot be predicted by the existing stochastic lubrication equation. A new stochastic lubrication equation considering the strong-slip boundary condition is thus derived using a long-wave approximation to the equations of fluctuating hydrodynamics. The linear stability analysis of this equation, i.e. surface spectrum, agrees well with molecular simulations. Interestingly, strong slip can break down the usual Stokes limits adopted in weak-slip dewetting and bring the inertia into effect. The evolution of the standard deviation of the film height $W^2(t)={\overline {h^2}-{\bar {h}}^2}$ at the initial stage of the strong-slip dewetting is found to be $W\sim t^{1/4}$ in contrast to $W\sim t^{1/8}$ for the weak-slip dewetting.

We study the dynamics of hydraulic fracturing of an elastic solid in a Hele-Shaw cell. Compared with hydraulic fractures in an infinite elastic bulk, the viscous resistance comes mainly from the drag by the two parallel plates that forms the Hele-Shaw cell rather than by the fluid–solid interface. Such a feature leads to a different nonlinear differential–integral system that describes the coupled evolution of the fracture shape and pressure field. Our theory leads to hydraulic fractures of cusp shapes in the neighbourhood of the fracture tip, which is consistent with recent experimental observations. Accordingly, there exists no pressure singularity at the location of the fracture tip, which is also fundamentally different from our previous understandings of hydraulic fracturing of elastic solids.

Whether colliding drops will merge with or bounce off each other is critical to numerous processes, and the physics involved is notoriously complex. In particular, experiments show that both sufficiently slow and fast head-on drop collisions lead to merging, but that there is often an intermediate regime in which bouncing is observed; these transitions in behaviour were recently discovered to be surprisingly sensitive to the radius of the drops and the ambient gas pressure. We show here that these transitions between bouncing and merging are governed by nanoscale phenomena; namely, gas-kinetic and disjoining pressure effects. To capture these crucial effects, a novel, open-source computational model is developed for the simulation of colliding drops. The model uses a hybrid approach, based on solving the Navier–Stokes equations in the drop with a lubrication approach for the unconventional physics of the gas film. Our simulations show remarkably good agreement with experiments of head-on collisions and also provide new experimentally verifiable predictions.

Thin-film equations are utilised in many different areas of fluid dynamics when there exists a direction in which the aspect ratio can be considered small. We consider thin free films with Marangoni effects in the extensional flow regime, where velocity gradients occur predominantly along the film. In practice, because of the local deposition of surfactants or input of energy, asymmetric distributions of surfactants or surface tension more generally, are possible. Such examples include the surface of bubbles and the rupture of thin films. In this study, we consider the asymmetric thin-film equations for extensional flow with Marangoni effects. Concentrating on the case of small Reynolds number $ Re $, we study the deposition of insoluble surfactants on one side of a liquid sheet otherwise at rest and the resulting thinning and rupture of the sheet. The analogous problem with a uniformly thinning liquid sheet is also considered. In addition, the centreline deformation is discussed. In particular, we show analytically that if the surface tension isotherm $\sigma = \sigma (\varGamma )$ is nonlinear (surface tension $\sigma$ varies with surfactant concentration $\varGamma$), then accounting for top–bottom asymmetry leads to slower (faster) thinning and pinching if $\sigma = \sigma (\varGamma )$ is convex (concave). The analytical progress reported in this paper allows us to discuss the production of satellite drops from rupture via Marangoni effects, which, if relevant to surface bubbles, would be an aerosol production mechanism that is distinct from jet drops and film drops.

We investigate the dynamics of a gas jet impinging perpendicular to a thin liquid film dragged by a rising vertical substrate. This configuration is relevant to the jet-wiping process in hot-dip galvanization and it is unstable. Previous studies analysed the dynamics of the instability in the case of liquids with low Kapitza numbers (highly viscous liquids), more amenable to experimental and numerical investigations. This work extends the previous investigations by focusing on the wiping at much higher Kapitza numbers, which are more relevant to the galvanizing process. The simulations are carried out by combining volume of fluid and large-eddy simulations, and the dynamics of the gas–liquid interaction is analysed using extended multiscale proper orthogonal decomposition. The simulations allowed for analysing the jet-wiping instability in new flow conditions. Despite the largely different conditions, the results show that the interaction between the gas jet and the liquid film is qualitatively similar, featuring two-dimensional waves in the liquid correlated with oscillations and deflections of the gas jet in all cases. The wave characteristics (e.g. frequency and propagation speed) scale remarkably well using the Shkadov-like scaling based on the liquid, suggesting a dominant role of the liquid film in the coupling, and potentially enabling extrapolation of the results to a broader range of wiping conditions. Finally, we use the numerical results to discuss the limitations of liquid-film models, which constitute currently the only possible approach to study the jet-wiping process in industrial conditions.

Depinning of liquid droplets on substrates by flow of a surrounding immiscible fluid is central to applications such as cross-flow microemulsification, oil recovery and waste cleanup. Surface roughness, either natural or engineered, can cause droplet pinning, so it is of both fundamental and practical interest to determine the flow strength of the surrounding fluid required for droplet depinning on rough substrates. Here, we develop a lubrication-theory-based model for droplet depinning on a substrate with topographical defects by flow of a surrounding immiscible fluid. The droplet and surrounding fluid are in a rectangular channel, a pressure gradient is imposed to drive flow and the defects are modelled as Gaussian-shaped bumps. Using a precursor-film/disjoining-pressure approach to capture contact-line motion, a nonlinear evolution equation is derived describing the droplet thickness as a function of distance along the channel and time. Numerical solutions of the evolution equation are used to investigate how the critical pressure gradient for droplet depinning depends on the viscosity ratio, surface wettability and droplet volume. Simple analytical models are able to account for many of the features observed in the numerical simulations. The influence of defect height is also investigated, and it is found that, when the maximum defect slope is larger than the receding contact angle of the droplet, smaller residual droplets are left behind at the defect after the original droplet depins and slides away. The model presented here yields considerably more information than commonly used models based on simple force balances, and provides a framework that can readily be extended to study more complicated situations involving chemical heterogeneity and three-dimensional effects.