Evolution of a thin film down an incline: A new perspective

A new model which accounts for energy balance while describing the evolution of a thin viscous, Newtonian film down an incline at high Reynolds numbers and moderate Weber numbers has been derived. With a goal to improve the predictions by the model in inertia dominated regimes, the study employs the Energy Integral Method with ellipse profile EIM(E) as a weight function and is motivated by the success of EIM in effectively and accurately predicting the squeeze film force in squeeze flow problems and in predicting the inertial effects on the performance of squeeze film dampers [Y. Han and R. J. Rogers, “Squeeze film force modeling for large amplitude motion using an elliptical velocity profile,” J. Tribol. 118(3), 687–697 (1996)]. The focus in the present study is to assess the performance of the model in predicting the instability threshold, the model successfully predicts the linear instability threshold accurately, and it agrees well with the classical result [T. Benjamin, “Wave formation in laminar flow down an inclined plane,” J. Fluid Mech. 2, 554–573 (1957)] and the experiments by Liu et al. [“Measurements of the primary instabilities of film flows,” J. Fluid Mech. 250, 69–101 (1993)]. The choice of the ellipse profile allows us to have a free parameter that is related to the eccentricity of the ellipse, which helps in refining the velocity profile, and the results indicate that as this parameter is increased, there is a significant improvement in the inertia dominated regimes. Furthermore, the full numerical solutions to the coupled nonlinear evolution equations are computed through approximations using the finite element method. Based on a measure {used by Tiwari and Davis [“Nonmodal and nonlinear dynamics of a volatile liquid film flowing over a locally heated surface,” Phys. Fluids 21, 102101 (2009)]} of the temporal growth rate of perturbations, a comparison of the slope of the nonlinear growth rate with the linear growth rate is obtained and the results show an excellent agreement. This confirms that the present model’s performance is as good as the other existing models, weighted residual integral boundary layer (WRIBL) by Ruyer-Quil and Manneville [“Improved modeling of flows down inclined planes,” Eur. Phys. J: B 15, 357–369 (2000)] and energy integral method with parabolic profile [EIM(P)] by Usha and Uma [“Modeling of stationary waves on a thin viscous film down an inclined plane at high Reynolds numbers and moderate Weber numbers using energy integral method,” Phys. Fluids 16, 2679–2696 (2004)]. Furthermore, for any fixed inclination θ of the substrate, 0 < θ < π/2, there is no significant difference between the EIM(E) and EIM(P) results for weaker inertial effects, but when the inertial effects become stronger, the EIM(E) results for energy contribution from inertial terms to the perturbation at any streamwise location is enhanced. More detailed investigation on the model’s performance due to this enhancement in energy contribution and the assessment of the model as compared to the other existing theoretical models, experimental observations, and numerical simulations, in the inertia dominated regimes, will be reported in a future study.