The effect of surface roughness on capillary imbibition

Abstract: Gyros AB, situated in Uppsala, builds microlaboratories (at micrometer
scale). In doing so they experience many of the phenomena found in capillary
theory such as stick-slip behaviour. In addition they find that the measured
flow rates in their capillaries do not compare to the Washburn equation,
frequently used to describe this. In this thesis the capillary flow problem
is approached via a periodic surface roughness hypothesis, dynamic contact
angle and perturbation analysis. A surface coefficient, for each material,
describing the character of the interplay between the liquid and solid is
produced. This coefficient could work as a complement to the contact angle.