Radial Imbibition in Paper under Temperature Differences

Spontaneous radial imbibition into thin circular samples of porous material when they have been subjected to radial temperature differences was analyzed theoretically and experimentally. The use of the Darcy equation allowed us to take into account temperature variations in the dynamic viscosity and surface tension in order to find the one-dimensional equation for the imbibition fronts. Experiments using blotting paper showed a good fit between the experimental data and theoretical profiles through the estimation of a single parameter.