Thursday, May 29

MS48
Dynamics of Thin Liquid Films

8:30 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Ballroom III

Thin liquid films occur in many settings, including a variety of industrial coating processes, in lubrication, soap films, etc. The modeling of thin films typically involves partial differential equations that include higher order derivatives due to contributions of surface tension, and nonlinearities due either to approximations such as the lubrication approximation, or to nonlinear constitutive behavior of the fluid. Recent activity in this field has uncovered new physical phenomena, and new mathematics to help understand the behavior of thin films. In this minisymposium, speakers will address topics from the theory of PDE models, their numerical simulation, and applications.

Organizer: Michael Shearer
North Carolina State University
Robert P. Behringer
Duke University

8:30-8:55 Drop Pinch-off and Filament Dynamics of Wormlike Micellar Fluids

Linda Smolka, Duke University and Pennsylvania State University; Andrew Belmonte, Pennsylvania State University

9:00-9:25 The Dynamics of Nematic Polymers in Laminar Flows: A Zoo of Bifurcations Associated with Bulk Molecular Phase Transitions

M. Gregory Forest, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

9:30-9:55 Nonlinear Instability of Contact Lines in Thin Film Flows Driven by Marangoni Forces

Jeanman Sur and Thomas P. Witelski, Duke University; Andrea L. Bertozzi, University of California, Los Angeles; Robert Behringer, Duke University

10:00-10:25 Comparisons Between Models of Dynamic Contact Lines

Michael Shearer, North Carolina State University; Rachel Levy, Harvey Mudd College