UC Santa Barbara

The surface shear rheology of many insoluble surfactants depends strongly on the surface pressure (or concentration) of that surfactant. Here we highlight the dramatic consequences that surface-pressure-dependent surface viscosities have on interfacially dominant flows, by considering lubrication-style geometries within high Boussinesq (Bo) number flows. As with three-dimensional lubrication, high-Bo surfactant flows through thin gaps give high surface pressures, which in turn increase the local surface viscosity, further amplifying lubrication stresses and surface pressures. Despite their strong nonlinearity, the governing equations are separable, so that results from two-dimensional Newtonian lubrication analyses may be immediately adapted to treat surfactant monolayers with a general functional form of ηs(Π). Three paradigmatic systems are analyzed to reveal qualitatively new features: a maximum, self-limiting value for surfactant fluxes and particle migration velocities appears for Π-thickening surfactants, and kinematic reversibility is broken for the journal bearing and for suspensions more generally.