The collapse of a catenoidal soap film when the rings supporting it are moved
beyond a critical separation is a classic problem in interface motion in which
there is a balance between surface tension and the inertia of the surrounding
air, with film viscosity playing only a minor role. Recently [Goldstein, et
al., Phys. Rev. E 104, 035105 (2021)], we introduced a variant of this problem
in which the catenoid is bisected by a glass plate located in a plane of
symmetry perpendicular to the rings, producing two identical hemicatenoids,
each with a surface Plateau border (SPB) on the glass plate. Beyond the
critical ring separation, the hemicatenoids collapse in a manner qualitatively
similar to the bulk problem, but their motion is governed by the frictional
forces arising from viscous dissipation in the SPBs. Here we present numerical
studies of a model that includes classical friction laws for SPB motion on wet
surfaces and show consistency with our experimental measurements of the
temporal evolution of this process. This study can help explain the
fragmentation of bubbles inside very confined geometries such as porous
materials or microfluidic devices.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, supplementary videos available at website of RE
