Spreading of Fluids on Solids Under Pressure: Effect of Slip

Spreading of different types of fluid on substrates under an impressed force is an interesting problem. Here we study spreading of four fluids, having different hydrophilicity and viscosity on two substrates - glass and perspex, under an external force. The area of contact of fluid and solid is video-photographed and its increase with time is measured. The results for different external forces can be scaled onto a common curve. We try to explain the nature of this curve on the basis of existing theoretical treatment where either the no-slip condition is used or slip between fluid and substrate is introduced. We find that of the eight cases under study, in five cases quantitative agreement is obtained using a slip coefficient.Comment: 6 figure

Euler Number and Percolation Threshold on a Square Lattice with Diagonal Connection Probability and Revisiting the Island-Mainland Transition

We report some novel properties of a square lattice filled with white sites, randomly occupied by black sites (with probability $p$). We consider connections up to second nearest neighbours, according to the following rule. Edge-sharing sites, i.e. nearest neighbours of similar type are always considered to belong to the same cluster. A pair of black corner-sharing sites, i.e. second nearest neighbours may form a 'cross-connection' with a pair of white corner-sharing sites. In this case assigning connected status to both pairs simultaneously, makes the system quasi-three dimensional, with intertwined black and white clusters. The two-dimensional character of the system is preserved by considering the black diagonal pair to be connected with a probability $q$, in which case the crossing white pair of sites are deemed disjoint. If the black pair is disjoint, the white pair is considered connected. In this scenario we investigate (i) the variation of the Euler number $\chi(p) \ [=N_B(p)-N_W(p)]$ versus $p$ graph for varying $q$, (ii) variation of the site percolation threshold with $q$ and (iii) size distribution of the black clusters for varying $p$, when $q=0.5$. Here $N_B$ is the number of black clusters and $N_W$ is the number of white clusters, at a certain probability $p$. We also discuss the earlier proposed 'Island-Mainland' transition (Khatun, T., Dutta, T. & Tarafdar, S. Eur. Phys. J. B (2017) 90: 213) and show mathematically that the proposed transition is not, in fact, a critical phase transition and does not survive finite size scaling. It is also explained mathematically why clusters of size 1 are always the most numerous