Dynamics of sessile drops. Part 1. Inviscid theory

Abstract

A sessile droplet partially wets a planar solid support. We study the linear stability of this spherical-cap base state to disturbances whose three-phase contact line is (i) pinned, (ii) moves with fixed contact angle and (iii) moves with a contact angle that is a smooth function of the contact-line speed. The governing hydrodynamic equations for inviscid motions are reduced to a functional eigenvalue problem on linear operators, which are parameterized by the base-state volume through the static contact angle and contact-line mobility via a spreading parameter. A solution is facilitated using inverse operators for disturbances (i) and (ii) to report frequencies and modal shapes identified by a polar $k$ and azimuthal $l$ wavenumber. For the dynamic contact-line condition (iii), we show that the disturbance energy balance takes the form of a damped-harmonic oscillator with ‘Davis dissipation’ that encompasses the dynamic effects associated with (iii). The effect of the contact-line motion on the dissipation mechanism is illustrated. We report an instability of the super-hemispherical base states with mobile contact lines (ii) that correlates with horizontal motion of the centre-of-mass, called the ‘walking’ instability. Davis dissipation from the dynamic contact-line condition (iii) can suppress the instability. The remainder of the spectrum exhibits oscillatory behaviour. For the hemispherical base state with mobile contact line (ii), the spectrum is degenerate with respect to the azimuthal wavenumber. We show that varying either the base-state volume or contact-line mobility lifts this degeneracy. For most values of these symmetry-breaking parameters, a certain spectral ordering of frequencies is maintained. However, because certain modes are more strongly influenced by the support than others, there are instances of additional modal degeneracies. We explain the physical reason for these and show how to locate them.