Least Action Determination of Minimal Surfaces for Leidenfrost Film-Boiling Droplets (Kevin Young, CofC)

Abstract: Leidenfrost film-boiling is a phenomenon in which a liquid comes in contact with a substrate which is much hotter than the liquid's boiling point. The substrate rapidly vaporizes a layer of liquid and the newly formed vapor layer insulates the drop, drastically reducing evaporation rate. When the substrate is a structured one (instead of perfectly flat), the vapor layer displaces the bottom of the droplet. The vapor-liquid interface assumes a smooth conformation which is, at least macroscopicaly, stable. Once reduced to a steady state situation, the problem can be treated with traditional Lagrangian techiniques, leading to an energy minimization problem. The driving energetic terms are gravity and surface tension. Functional constraints are, however, inequalities which lend themeselves to inclusion in the energy term rather than treatment by the usual method of undetermined multipliers.

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This is an abstract of a poster to be presented at the 2004 SEAMS Workshop in Charleston, SC. For more information, visit the workshop's homepage at math.cofc.edu/SEAMS.