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Updated: Jul 5, 2026

Film Control to Study Contributions of Waves to Droplet Impact Dynamics on Thin Flowing Liquid Films
Published on: August 18, 2018
Brownian motion of a drop with hysteresis dissipation
Manoj K Chaudhury1, Srinivas Mettu
1Department of Chemical Engineering, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 18015, USA. mkc4@lehigh.edu
Abstract:
Small water drops placed on a low-energy substrate with a slight tilt were vibrated parallel to the support with bands of Gaussian white noise of different powers. The drops drifted downward on the inclined support accompanied with random forward and backward movements. For a hysteresis free surface, the drift velocity should only be the product of the component of the gravitational acceleration and the Langevin relaxation time, being independent of the power of noise. On the other hand, in the presence of hysteresis, as is the case here, the drift velocity depends strongly on the power of the noise. This result illustrates the role of hysteresis in the drifted motion of drops on a surface subjected to vibration, which has important bearings on various forms of work fluctuation relations.
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