Dynamic Contact Angles And Wetting Front Instability In Soils

Dynamic contact could provide a mechanism for initiating the instability of wetting fronts and the formation of gravity fingers/columns in porous media. To study those dynamic contact angles when gravity effects are present, rectangular capillary tubes are used to facilitate the observation of the complete interface without geometric distortion. Results show that if the dynamic contact angle minus the static contact angle is used, we obtain good agreement with previous observations. In addition, we show that in our experiments, unlike previous observations, contact angles are independent of capillary size. It also points out a way to calculate the capillary pressure at the wetting front as a function of the flux in the finger and grain size diameter.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S., Agricultural and Biological Engineering

Level thesis:degree_level

Master of Science

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Agricultural and Biological Engineering

Grantor

Cornell University

Year dc:date.issued

2013

Author dc:creator

• Baver, Christine

Committee member dc:contributor.committeemember

• Parlange, Jean-Yves

• dynamic contact angles
• rectangular capillary tubes
• instability

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1813/33828

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:ecommons.cornell.edu:1813/33828