Duke Applied Mathematics

Publications [#376241] of Thomas P. Witelski

Papers Published

1. Ji, H; Witelski, TP, COARSENING OF THIN FILMS WITH WEAK CONDENSATION, SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics, vol. 84 no. 2 (January, 2024), pp. 362-386, Society for Industrial & Applied Mathematics (SIAM) [doi]
   (last updated on 2026/01/19)

   Abstract:
   A lubrication model can be used to describe the dynamics of a weakly volatile viscous fluid layer on a hydrophobic substrate. Thin layers of the fluid are unstable to perturbations and break up into slowly evolving interacting droplets. A reduced-order dynamical system is derived from the lubrication model based on the nearest-neighbor droplet interactions in the weak condensation limit. Dynamics for periodic arrays of identical drops and pairwise droplet interactions are investigated, providing insights into the coarsening dynamics of a large droplet system. Weak condensation is shown to be a singular perturbation, fundamentally changing the long-time coarsening dynamics for the droplets and the overall mass of the fluid in two additional regimes of long-time dynamics.