Galerkin method to model thin free surface flows

Abstract

Viscoelastic thin films with free surface are important in industry as well as in nature. However, there does not exist a robust and systematic framework to analyze such films. Lubrication approximations, largely successful in studying thin generalized Newtonian fluid flows, have been employed to tackle this task but have met with only limited success. This particular work highlights the shortcomings of the lubrication analysis in this context and suggests an alternative in the form of a Galerkin-like projection method.