On the transition between a wetting film and a capillary meniscus教程.pdfVIP

On the Transition between a Wetting Film and a Capillary Meniscus F. RENK, P. C. WAYNER, JR., AND G. M. HOMSY Westvaco, Laurel, Maryland 20810, Department of Chemical Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York 12181, and Department of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305 Received January 13, 1978; accepted May 18, 1978 The shape of a horizontal meniscus which is influenced both by capillarity and by an adsorbed thin film is determined. An exact solution is obtained which clearly shows the features of a transition between a curved meniscus and an adsorbed film. The method of matched asymptotic expansions is used to elucidate many of the details of the transition layer, its horizontal thickness, and the question of apparent contact angle. INTRODUCTION that the profile shape in the transition re- gion may be used as a probe of the form It has long been recognized that a menis- and magnitude of the forces acting on a thin cus can exist in thermodynamic equilibrium film. More recently, in work closely paral- with an adsorbed or free liquid film. These leled by our own, Deryagin et al. (2) have situations are of interest in the microscopic reported solutions to the combined capil- film technique for studying forces in thin lary-thin film problem for the case of a hori- films (1), in capillary condensation (2, 3), in zontal capillary tube.