THE LEVICH INSTITUTE ANNOUNCES THE FOLLOWING SEMINAR

Tuesday, 10/27/98
4:00 PM
Steinman Hall, Room #1M-22
Professor Sandra Troian
Princeton University
Chemical Engineering Department
"Novel Instabilities in Thin Liquid Films: The Beauty and the Beast"


ABSTRACT

Efforts to produce lighter and smaller electronic and optical components have produced renewed interest in the hydrodynamic behavior of thin coating films, especially in systems with large surface to volume ratio. Heat and mass transport in ultrasmall geometries can differ significantly from the transport behavior in bulk, especially in systems controlled by interfacial forces. It is well known that complex macromolecular fluids at an interface can undergo unstable flow to produce spontaneous layering, molecular reorientation, or accelerated phase separation. But even simple Newtonian liquids confined to an interface can undergo thin film instabilities with surprisingly rich flow behavior and interesting surface organization. During the past few years,we have uncovered several novel instabilities in spreading films caused by the interplay of capillary, Marangoni, and van der Waals forces. These instabilities can produce rivulets, fractal fronts, or propagating vortices. Through a combination of experimental, theoretical, and numerical work, we have characterized the dynamics of several interfacial instabilities which can significantly affect flow behavior in systems ranging from surfactant transport in pulmonary channels to the fabrication of organic films used in non-linear optical microdevices. The complex behavior exhibited by these liquid-on-liquid and liquid-on-solid systems secures their reputation as some of the more intriguing physical phenomena in interfacial science.

BRIEF ACADEMIC/EMPLOYMENT HISTORY:

• 1987 Ph.D., Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
• 1987-89 Postdoc, Exxon Research & Engineering, Annandale, NJ
• 1989-90 Postdoc, College de France, Paris, France
• 1991-93 Industrial Consulting Professorship, ChE, Stanford
• 1990-93 Senior Physicist, Exxon Research & Engineering
• 1993- Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering, Princeton

RESEARCH INTERESTS:

• Instabilities in thin liquid films
• Modification of shear boundary layers by surface cooling
• Boundary conditions at liquid-solid interfaces
• Confinement effects on spinodal decomposition in binary mixtures

Return to Fall, 1998 Seminar Schedule