Capillary rise in pipes with variable cross section

Abstract

This work proposes an ODE model for a capillary rise in pipes with variable cross section, and compares it to the lubrication theory model. Two key assumptions are made: (1) radius of the pipe varies with axial coordinate, and (2) pipe’s convergence angle is small. The model reduction process involves the identification of critical parameters and simplifies the governing equations by neglecting higher-order terms. Under appropriate scaling, it is shown that generalized Washburn’s equation for capillary rise in pipes with variable cross section reduces to the lubrication theory model (Figliuzzi and Buie, 2013; Gorce et al., 2016).