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    Impact of slippage on the morphology and stability of a dewetting rim
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2010) Münch, Andreas; Wagner, Barbara
    In this study lubrication theory is used to describe the stability and morphology of the rim that forms as a thin polymer film dewets from a hydrophobized silicon wafer. Thin film equations are derived from the governing hydrodynamic equations for the polymer to enable the systematic mathematical and numerical analysis of the properties of the solutions for different regimes of slippage and for a range of time scales. Dewetting rates and the cross sectional profiles of the evolving rims are derived for these models and compared to experimental results. Experiments also show that the rim is typically unstable in the spanwise direction and develops thicker and thinner parts that may grow into ``fingers''. Linear stability analysis as well as nonlinear numerical solutions are presented to investigate shape and growth rate of the rim instability. It is demonstrated that the difference in morphology and the rate at which the instability develops can be directly attributed to the magnitude of slippage. Finally, a derivation is given for the dominant wavelength of the bulges along the unstable rim.
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    Stability analysis of non-constant base states in thin film equations
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2013) Dziwnik, Marion; Korzec, Maciek D.; Münch, Andreas; Wagner, Barbara
    We address the linear stability of non-constant base states within the class of mass conserving free boundary problems for degenerate and non-degenerate thin film equations. Well-known examples are the finger-instabilities of growing rims that appear in retracting thin solid and liquid films. Since the base states are time dependent and do not have a simple travelling wave or self-similar form, a classical eigenvalue analysis fails to provide the dominant wavelength of the instability. However, the initial fronts evolve on a slower time-scale than the typical perturbations. We exploit this time-scale separation and develop a multiple-scale approach for this class of stability problems. We show that the value of the dominant wavelength is rapidly attained once the base state has entered an approximately self-similar scaling. We note that this value is different from the one obtained by the linear stability analysis with "frozen modes", frequently found in the literature. Furthermore we show that for the present class of stability problems the dispersion relation behaves linear for large wavelengths, which is in contrast to many other instability problems in thin film flows.