Measurements of the stabilisation of liquid film flow by the soluble surfactant sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS)

Gravity-driven film flow of aqueous solutions of SDS is studied experimentally and the evolution of small-amplitude, regular inlet disturbances is investigated. With the addition of SDS, strong attenuation of non-linear growth is observed, with traveling waves remaining relatively small in height and near-sinusoidal over an impressive parametric range. The critical Reynolds number of the primary instability rises by an order of magnitude. Maximum stabilization is observed at small surfactant loadings (characterized by surface tension 60–65 mN/m) and the critical Reynolds number gradually decreases with further addition of surfactant. Observations are interpreted by the competing effects of surface elasticity -which increases with the adsorbed SDS and intensifies Marangoni stresses- and surfactant mass transfer between bulk and interface -which also increases with the amount of SDS and mitigates interfacial gradients and Marangoni stresses. © 2016 Elsevier Lt

Measurements of liquid film flow as a function of fluid properties and channel width: Evidence for surface-tension-induced long-range transverse coherence

We study experimentally the influence of the transverse dimension on film flow in relatively wide channels with sidewalls. Large deviations from two-dimensional predictions are observed in the primary instability and in the post-threshold traveling waves, and the deviations are presently shown to depend strongly on fluid physical properties. Measurements for a wide range of fluid properties are found to correlate with the Kapitza number, which represents the ratio of capillary to viscous stresses. These observations point to an unexpected long-range effect of surface tension that provides transverse coherence to the flow

The effect of soluble surfactants on liquid film flow

We investigate experimentally the modifications in the dynamics of liquid film flow, resulting from the addition in water of the soluble surfactants iso-propanol (IP) and Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate (SDS). Recent experiments indicate that, the primary instability of film flow in channels of finite width depends on surface tension. Using IP solutions of varying concentrations, we have shown that this dependence scales with Kapitza number. Based on the high solubility and diffusivity of iso-propanol in water, we argue that these solutions behave as pure liquids with reduced surface tension. Indeed, low-frequency inlet disturbances turn in the unstable regime into solitary humps preceded by capillary ripples, with the scaling predicted by theory for simple liquids. Aqueous solutions of SDS exhibit a remarkably different behavior, with more pronounced feature of strong damping of all inlet disturbances. The dominant structures for the entire range of inlet frequencies tested, even at surprisingly high Re, are sinusoidal traveling waves of very small amplitude. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd