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The flow of a thin film coating the underside of an inclined substrate is studied. We measure experimentally spatial growth rates and compare them to the linear stability analysis of a flat film modelled by the lubrication equation. When forced by a stationary localized perturbation, a front develops that we predict with the group velocity of the unstable wave packet. We compare our experimental measurements with numerical solutions of the nonlinear lubrication equation with complete curvature. Streamwise structures dominate and saturate after some distance. We recover their profile with a one-dimensional lubrication equation suitably modified to ensure an invariant profile along the streamwise direction and compare them with the solution of a purely two-dimensional pendent drop, showing overall a very good agreement. Finally, those different profiles agree also with a two-dimensional simulation of the Stokes equations.
We investigate the Rayleigh–Taylor instability of a thin liquid film coated on the inside of a cylinder whose axis is orthogonal to gravity. We are interested in the effects of geometry on the instability, and contrast our results with the classical case of a thin film coated under a flat substrate. In our problem, gravity is the destabilizing force at the origin of the instability, but also yields the progressive drainage and stretching of the coating along the cylinder’s wall. We find that this flow stabilizes the film, which is asymptotically stable to infinitesimal perturbations. However, the short-time algebraic growth that these perturbations can achieve promotes the formation of different patterns, whose nature depends on the Bond number that prescribes the relative magnitude of gravity and capillary forces. Our experiments indicate that a transverse instability arises and persists over time for moderate Bond numbers. The liquid accumulates in equally spaced rivulets whose dominant wavelength corresponds to the most amplified mode of the classical Rayleigh–Taylor instability. The formation of rivulets allows for a faster drainage of the liquid from top to bottom when compared to a uniform drainage. For higher Bond numbers, a two-dimensional stretched lattice of droplets is found to form on the top part of the cylinder. Rivulets and the lattice of droplets are inherently three-dimensional phenomena and therefore require a careful three-dimensional analysis. We found that the transition between the two types of pattern may be rationalized by a linear optimal transient growth analysis and nonlinear numerical simulations.