Thin-film rupture for large slip

The rupture of thin liquid films on hydrophobic substrates, assuming large slip at the liquid-solid interface, is studied using a recently developed strong slip lubrication model, it is shown that the rupture passes through up to three self-similar regimes with different dominant balances and different scaling exponents. For one of these regimes the similarity is of second kind, and the similarity exponent is determined by solving a boundary-value problem for a nonlinear ODE. Furthermore, finite-time rupture is proved for this regime. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009