Alexander S Balankin, H Zapata López, E Pineda León, D Morales Matamoros, L Morales Ruiz, Dan Silva López, M A Rodríguez
Grupo Mecánica Fractal, Instituto Politécnico Nacional, México D.F., Mexico 07738.
Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics 2013 JanWe study the effects of ambient air humidity on the dynamics of imbibition in a paper. We observed that a quick increase of ambient air humidity leads to depinning and non-Washburn motion of wetting fronts. Specifically, we found that after depinning the wetting front moves with decreasing velocity v[proportionality](h(p)/h(D))(γ), where h(D) is the front elevation with respect to its pinned position at lower humidity h(p), while γ=/~1/3. The spatiotemporal maps of depinned front activity are established. The front motion is controlled by the dynamics of local avalanches directed at 30° to the balk flow direction. Although the roughness of the pinned wetting front is self-affine and the avalanche size distribution displays a power-law asymptotic, the roughness of the moving front becomes multiaffine a few minutes after depinning.
Alexander S Balankin, H Zapata López, E Pineda León, D Morales Matamoros, L Morales Ruiz, Dan Silva López, M A Rodríguez. Depinning and dynamics of imbibition fronts in paper under increasing ambient humidity. Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics. 2013 Jan;87(1):014102
PMID: 23410468
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