8th Liquid Matter Conference September 6-10, 2011 Wien, Austria ...

P7.48Thu 811:10-14:00Draining transitions driven by gravitySamantha Ivell, 1 Alice Thorneywork, 1 Elizabeth Jamie, 1 Dirk Aarts, 1 CarlosRascon, 2 and Andrew Parry 31 University of Oxford, PTCL, South Parks Road, OX1 3QZ, Oxford, United Kingdom2 Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Leganes, Spain3 Imperial College, London, London, United KingdomPhase transitions that occur when a fluid is confined, for example in a pore or between two parallelplates, have received enormous attention over the last few decades. However, the influence ofa gravitational field has generally been considered negligible. It is clear that in many practicalsituations this is not the case, and in fact, the combination of gravity and confinement providesinteresting interfacial behaviour. Consider, for example, tipping a large liquid-filled vessel towardsthe horizontal. Common sense tells us that the vessel will empty. However, if the container is smallenough, the liquid remains held inside (imagine now tipping over a water-filled straw). Using thisconcept, we have been able to explore the behaviour of menisci of simple fluids contained withincapillaries with different surface coatings. We have studied the dependence of tilt angle, capillarysize, surface tension and contact angle on meniscus collapse.48