Gravity-driven soap film dynamics in subcritical regimes

M I AULIEL; F CASTRO; R SOSA; G ARTANA

PHYSICAL REVIEW E

American Physical Society

Lugar: New York; Año: 2015 vol. 92 p. 1 - 9

1539-3755

We undertake the analysis of soap-film dynamics with the classical approach of asymptotic expansions. We focus our analysis in vertical soap film tunnels operating in subcritical regimes with elastic Mach numbers Me=O(10−1). Considering the associated set of nondimensional numbers that characterize this flow, we show that the flow behaves as a two-dimensional (2D) divergence free flow with variable mass density. When the soap film dynamics agrees with that of a 2D and almost constant mass density flow, the regions where the second invariant of the velocity gradient is non-null correspond to regions where the rate of change of film thickness is non-negligible.