Finite element study of a heated thin fluid layer including surfactant effect

dc.contributor.advisorCarey, Graham F.en
dc.creatorWang, Xiaowenen
dc.date.accessioned2008-08-28T21:43:27Zen
dc.date.available2008-08-28T21:43:27Zen
dc.date.issued2002en
dc.descriptiontexten
dc.description.abstractThis investigation deals with modeling and numerical approximation of thermocapillary and surfactant effects in long wavelength evolution of thin liquid layers. We consider several aspects including: model development, scaling and perturbation analysis, variational formulations, finite element approximation and solution strategies for these problems. Issues related to treating the fluid volume constraint within this variational finite element setting are also considered. A linear stability analysis of the nonlinear thermocapillary problem is developed and its implications are explored numerically over the related parameter space. In the inclined plane case for the thermocapillary problem, it is observed in the time dependent finite element solutions that a slight inclination of the system may give rise to premature onset of instability. We also extend the treatment of the physical problem to include an insoluble surfactant monolayer and develop a supporting perturbation analysis. The resulting more complex model involves coupling to an additional transport equation for surfactant concentration on the surface. We develop the variational formulation, finite element implementation and stability analysis of this coupled system. We characterize the stability behavior into four parametric regions based on linear stability analysis and verify the behavior using finite element approximation of time dependent solutions on one and two-dimensional spatial domains.
dc.description.departmentAerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanicsen
dc.format.mediumelectronicen
dc.identifierb57270260en
dc.identifier.oclc57122140en
dc.identifier.proqst3110700en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2152/1027en
dc.language.isoengen
dc.rightsCopyright is held by the author. Presentation of this material on the Libraries' web site by University Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin was made possible under a limited license grant from the author who has retained all copyrights in the works.en
dc.subject.lcshConvection (Astrophysics)en
dc.subject.lcshFinite element methoden
dc.subject.lcshLiquid filmsen
dc.titleFinite element study of a heated thin fluid layer including surfactant effecten
dc.type.genreThesisen

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