Longitudinal and transversal flow over a cavity containing a second immiscible fluid

TL;DR

This paper presents an analytical solution for the flow over a cavity containing a second immiscible fluid, extending fluid dynamics understanding to complex boundary conditions relevant for superhydrophobic surfaces.

Contribution

It derives a closed-form analytical expression for the flow field over such cavities, considering both transversal and longitudinal flows, which was previously unexplored.

Findings

Analytical flow field matches numerical Navier-Stokes solutions

Flow depends on cavity geometry and fluid properties

Provides insights for designing superhydrophobic surfaces

Abstract

An analytical solution for the flow field of a shear flow over a rectangular cavity containing a second immiscible fluid is derived. While flow of a single-phase fluid over a cavity is a standard case investigated in fluid dynamics, flow over a cavity which is filled with a second immiscible fluid, has received little attention. The flow filed inside the cavity is considered to define a boundary condition for the outer flow which takes the form of a Navier slip condition with locally varying slip length. The slip-length function is determined from the related problem of lid-driven cavity flow. Based on the Stokes equations and complex analysis it is then possible to derive a closed analytical expression for the flow field over the cavity for both the transversal and the longitudinal case. The result is a comparatively simple function, which displays the dependence of the flow field on the cavity geometry and the medium filling the cavity. The analytically computed flow field agrees well with results obtained from a numerical solution of the Navier-Stokes equations. The studies presented in this article are of considerable practical relevance, for example for the flow over superhydrophobic surfaces.