Spreading of liquid drops on thin cylinders: The ‘‘manchon/droplet’’ transition

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Abstract
We discuss the spreading of liquids on thin cylinders (radius b), including the effects of long range attractive van der Waals (VW) forces. For volatile liquids, the vapor adsorbs on the cylinders; the thickness e of the film is given by a balance between the disjoining VW pressure and Laplace pressure (e3=ba2, where a is a molecular size). For nonvolatile liquids, a liquid drop cannot spread out over the cylinder if the spreading coefficient S is smaller than a critical value Sc. For S=Sc, we find a first order transition between a droplet and a sheath structure (‘‘manchon’’). For S>Sc the droplet spreads indefinitely. The thickness of the manchon is equal to the thickness reached by a drop spreading over a plane surface. We also calculate the liquid profile just below the threshold Sc. When S→Sc, a precursor manchon appears at the two poles of the droplets.

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