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Motion of a disk embedded in a nearly inviscid Langmuir film. Part 1. Translation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2023

Ehud Yariv*
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
Rodolfo Brandão
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
Michael Siegel
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematical Sciences, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ 07102, USA
Howard A. Stone
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
*
On sabbatical leave. Permanent address: Department of Mathematics, Technion — Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel. Email address for correspondence: yarivehud@gmail.com

Abstract

The motion of a disk in a Langmuir film bounding a liquid substrate is a classical hydrodynamic problem, dating back to Saffman (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 73, 1976, p. 593) who focused upon the singular problem of translation at large Boussinesq number, ${\textit {Bq}}\gg 1$. A semianalytic solution of the dual integral equations governing the flow at arbitrary ${\textit {Bq}}$ was devised by Hughes et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 110, 1981, p. 349). When degenerated to the inviscid-film limit ${\textit {Bq}}\to 0$, it produces the value $8$ for the dimensionless translational drag, which is $50\,\%$ larger than the classical $16/3$-value corresponding to a free surface. While that enhancement has been attributed to surface incompressibility, the mathematical reasoning underlying the anomaly has never been fully elucidated. Here we address the inviscid limit ${\textit {Bq}}\to 0$ from the outset, revealing a singular mechanism where half of the drag is contributed by the surface pressure. We proceed beyond that limit, considering a nearly inviscid film. A naïve attempt to calculate the drag correction using the reciprocal theorem fails due to an edge singularity of the leading-order flow. We identify the formation of a boundary layer about the edge of the disk, where the flow is primarily in the azimuthal direction with surface and substrate stresses being asymptotically comparable. Utilising the reciprocal theorem in a fluid domain tailored to the asymptotic topology of the problem produces the drag correction $(8\,{\textit {Bq}}/{\rm \pi} ) [ \ln (2/{\textit {Bq}}) + \gamma _E+1]$, $\gamma _E$ being the Euler–Mascheroni constant.

Information

Type
JFM Papers
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press.
Figure 0

Figure 1. Schematic of the problem geometry and the $(\rho,\phi,z)$ coordinates: (a) ‘side’ view; (b) ‘bottom’ view.

Figure 1

Figure 2. (a) Integration domain and local polar coordinates $(\varpi,\psi )$. (b) Edge-layer coordinates.