Symmetry Analysis of Surfactant Driven Thin Liquid Film Equations

Abstract

Spreading of liquid thin film driven by surfactant due to the Marangoni effect is described using a coupled system of second-order partial differential equations. Lie group of transformation are used to obtain the symmetries of the given system of partial differential equations. The symmetries are then used to arrive at a semi-analytic solution of the system. Furthermore, a vector field analysis of the obtained solution is performed to provide additional insights into the problem. The obtained results demonstrate that the surfactant concentration drives the fluid, and thereby the fluid thins faster.