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Solitary waves on superconfined falling liquid films

Gianluca Lavalle* and Nicolas Grenier

Sophie Mergui

Georg F. Dietze†

  • Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, LIMSI, 91400, Orsay, France

  • Sorbonne Université, Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, FAST, 91405, Orsay, France

  • Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, FAST, 91405, Orsay, France

  • *Present address: Institut de Mécanique des Fluides de Toulouse (IMFT)–Univ. de Toulouse, CNRS-INPT-UPS, Toulouse, France; author to whom correspondence should be addressed: gianluca.lavalle@limsi.fr
  • †Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: dietze@fast.u-psud.fr
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Phys. Rev. Fluids 5, 032001(R) – Published 2 March, 2020

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.5.032001

Abstract

Solitary traveling waves are prominent features covering the surface of a falling liquid film and are known to promote heat and mass transfer. We focus on the little studied case where they are subject to an extremely confined countercurrent gas flow, and we identify two secondary instabilities. At high gas velocities, a catastrophic instability develops, leading to flooding through wave reversal and liquid arrest. At lower gas velocities, an oscillatory instability occurs, producing a high-frequency periodic modulation of the wave height. Conjunction of this self-sustained oscillatory state and vortices forming in the liquid is shown to enhance mixing. We also show that the gas flow can cause extreme local film thinning, leading to almost dry patches where the liquid thickness is very small.

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Phys. Rev. Fluids 5, 032001(R)– Published 2 March, 2020
  • Received 22 October 2019
  • Accepted 11 February 2020
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