Spreading of foam on a substrate

Abstract

Foam is an industrially important form of matter, commonly deployed to clean objects and even our own skin, thanks to its ability to absorb oil and particles into its interior. To clean a large area, a foam is spread over a substrate, but the optimum conditions and mechanism have been unclear. Here, we study how a foam is spread by a rigid plate on a substrate as a function of spreading velocity, gap height, confinement length, amount of foam and wettability of the substrate. Three distinguishable spreading patterns were found: homogeneous spreading, non-spreading, and slender spreading. It is also found that the dynamics and the mechanism of the spreading can be explained by coupling among dewetting, anchoring, shear stress, viscous stress and yield stress. It is a unique feature of foams, which is not observed in simple liquids and then these findings are also critical for understanding the mechanical response of other soft jamming systems such as cells and emulsions.