Monday, 11 October 2004 - 4:20 PM

This presentation is part of : Surface Stress in Nature and Technology

Computational investigation of unusual behavior in certain capillary tubes

Victor Brady, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 50A-1148, Berkeley, CA 94720, Paul Concus, University of California, LBNL and Department of Mathematics, 50A-1148, Berkeley, CA 94720, and Robert Finn, Stanford University, Department of Mathematics, Stanford, CA 94305.

We investigate computationally two recent mathematical findings involving unusual behavior of solutions of the Young-Laplace capillary equation in cylindrical tubes of particular sections. The first concerns a configuration for which smoothing of the boundary curve at a sharp corner leads from existence to non-existence of a solution over the container section in zero gravity. The second describes a discontinuous behavior of relative rise height in nesting tubes placed vertically in an infinite reservoir. The numerical results support and quantify the mathematical predictions.

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