Numerical Investigation of the Steady State of a Driven Thin Film Equation

A third-order ordinary differential equation with application in the flow of a thin liquid film is considered. The boundary conditions come from Tanner's problem for the surface tension driven flow of a thin film. Symmetric and nonsymmetric finite difference schemes are implemented in order to...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: A. J. Hutchinson, C. Harley, E. Momoniat
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2013-01-01
Series:Journal of Applied Mathematics
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/181939
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Summary:A third-order ordinary differential equation with application in the flow of a thin liquid film is considered. The boundary conditions come from Tanner's problem for the surface tension driven flow of a thin film. Symmetric and nonsymmetric finite difference schemes are implemented in order to obtain steady state solutions. We show that a central difference approximation to the third derivative in the model equation produces a solution curve with oscillations. A difference scheme based on a combination of forward and backward differences produces a smooth accurate solution curve. The stability of these schemes is analysed through the use of a von Neumann stability analysis.
ISSN:1110-757X
1687-0042