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Four-phase merging in sessile compound drops

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2002

L. MAHADEVAN ,
M. ADDA-BEDIA  and
Y. POMEAU
L. MAHADEVAN
Affiliation:
Laboratoire de Physique Statistique de l’Ecole Normale Supérieure, 24 rue Lhomond, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France Present address: Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, Silver Street, Cambridge CB3 9EW, UK
M. ADDA-BEDIA
Affiliation:
Laboratoire de Physique Statistique de l’Ecole Normale Supérieure, 24 rue Lhomond, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France
Y. POMEAU
Affiliation:
Laboratoire de Physique Statistique de l’Ecole Normale Supérieure, 24 rue Lhomond, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France
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Abstract

We consider the statics of compound droplets made of two immiscible fluids on a rigid substrate, in the limit when gravity is dominated by capillarity. In particular, we show that the merging of four phases along a single contact line is a persistent and robust phenomenon from a mechanical and thermodynamic perspective; it can and does occur for a range of interfacial energies and droplet volumes. We give an interpretation for this in the context of the macroscopic Young–Laplace law and its microscopic counterpart due to van der Waals, and show that the topological transitions that result can be of either a continuous or discontinuous type depending on the interfacial energies in question.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 451 , 25 January 2002 , pp. 411 - 420
Copyright
© 2002 Cambridge University Press

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