Dresden 2011 – scientific programme

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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 40: Posters II

DY 40.2: Poster

Thursday, March 17, 2011, 17:00–19:00, P3

Theoretical model for spontaneous imbibition of water in Vycor glass — •Zeinab Sadjadi and Heiko Rieger — Theoretische Physik, Universität des Saarlandes, 66041 Saarbrücken, Germany

We study theoretically the spontaneous imbibition, that is the capillary rise of water, in networks of hydrophilic silica pores with characteristic radii of 3-5 nm, which is realized by imbibition experiments with Vycor glass [1,2]. The latter is permeated by a network of interconnected pores which we model by a network of cylindrical pipes with random diameter and varying aspect ratio. We simulate the capillary rise of the liquid by solving the mass balance equations for ideal pipe flow at each node with the boundary pressure constraints given by the liquid reservoir on one side and the Laplace pressure at the moving menisci on the other side. We analyze the temporal evolution of the average height and width of the invasion front, as well as its morphological characteristics. Classical Lucas-Washburn law is expected for the time dependence of the height, varying theoretical predictions and experimental observations have been made for the tiem dependence of the front width, which we discuss in the light of our simulation results.

[1] Simon Grüner, Tommy Hofmann, Dirk Wallacher, Andriy Kityk and Patrick Huber, Phys. Rev. E 79, 067301 (2009).

[2] Simon Grüner and Patrick Huber, Phys.Rev. Lett 103, 174501 (2009).