On the effects of liquid-gas interfacial shear on slip flow through a parallel-plate channel with superhydrophobic grooved walls

Comparisons between slip lengths predicted by a liquid-gas coupled model and that by an idealized zero-gas-shear model are presented in this paper. The problem under consideration is pressure-driven flow of a liquid through a plane channel bounded by two superhydrophobic walls which are patterned with longitudinal or transverse gas-filled grooves. Effective slip arises from lubrication on the liquid-gas interface and intrinsic slippage on the solid phase of the wall. In the mathematical models, the velocities are analytically expressed in terms of eigenfunction series expansions, where the unknown coefficients are determined by the matching of velocities and shear stresses on the liquid-gas interface. Results are generated to show the effects due to small but finite gas viscosity on the effective slip lengths as functions of the channel height, the depth of grooves, the gas area fraction of the wall, and intrinsic slippage of the solid phase. Conditions under which even a gas/liquid viscosity ratio as small as 0.01 may have appreciable effects on the slip lengths are discussed. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3493641]