Capillarity driven spreading of circular drops of shear-thinning fluid

Abstract

We investigate the spreading of thin, circular liquid drops of power-law rheology. We derive the equation of motion using the thin film approximation, construct source-type similarity solutions and compute the spreading rate, aparent contact angles and height profiles. In contrast with the spreading of newtonian liquids, the contact line paradox does not arise for shear thinning fluids.Comment: 7 pages and 2 figure