TITLE: Fingering instabilities in driven contact lines: Why paint drips down a wall.

SPEAKER: Professor Andrea L. Bertozzi,

TIME: Thursday, February 25, 1999, starting at 4:00 PM

PLACE: George P. Williams, Jr. Lecture Hall, (Olin 101)

Thin liquid films often produce complex patterns and structures when externally driven. A well known example is paint dripping down a wall. The dynamics of such problems involve the interplay between surface tension on the liquid/air interface, the driving force, and the surface chemistry at the solid wall. The understanding of such problems is important for such industrial applications as spin coating of microchips and de-icing of airplane wings. I will give an overview of experimental and theoretical results (including mathematical models) for driven films as well as a live demonstration.