Washburn's equation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washburn's_equation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In physics, Washburn's equation describes capillary flow in a bundle of parallel cylindrical tubes; it is
extended with some issues also to imbibition into porous materials. The equation is named after Edward Wight
Washburn;[1] also known as LucasWashburn equation, considering that Richard Lucas[2] wrote a similar
paper three years earlier, or the Bell-Cameron-Lucas-Washburn equation, considering J.M. Bell and F.K.
Cameron's discovery of the form of the equation fifteen years earlier.[3]

1 Derivation
1.1 Washburn's constant
2 Applications
2.1 Inkjet printing
3 References

In case of a fully wettable capillary, it is

where is the time for a liquid of dynamic viscosity and surface tension to penetrate a distance into the
capillary whose pore diameter is . In case of a porous materials many issues have been raised both about the
physical meaning of the calculated pore diameter [4] and the real possibility to use this equation for the
calculation of the contact angle of the solid.[5]
The equation is derived for capillary flow in a cylindrical tube in the absence of a gravitational field, but
according to physicist Len Fisher can be extremely accurate for more complex materials including biscuits (see
dunk (biscuit)). Following National biscuit dunking day, some newspaper articles quoted the equation as
Fisher's equation.
In his paper (http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PR/v17/i3/p273_1) from 1921 Washburn applies Poiseuille's Law for
fluid motion in a circular tube. Inserting the expression for the differential volume in terms of the length of
fluid in the tube
, one obtains

where
pressure
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is the sum over the participating pressures, such as the atmospheric pressure
, the hydrostatic
and the equivalent pressure due to capillary forces
. is the viscosity of the liquid, and is the

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Washburn's equation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washburn's_equation

coefficient of slip, which is assumed to be 0 for wetting materials.

in turn can be written as

is the radius of the capillary. The pressures

where is the density of the liquid and its surface tension. is the angle of the tube with respect to the
horizontal axis. is the contact angle of the liquid on the capillary material. Substituting these expressions
leads to the first-order differential equation for the distance the fluid penetrates into the tube :

Washburn's constant
The Washburn constant may be included in Washburn's equation.
It is calculated as follows:
[6][7]

Inkjet printing
The penetration of a liquid into the substrate flowing under its own capillary pressure can be calculated using a
simplified version of Washburn's equation:[8][9]

where the surface tension-to-viscosity ratio

represents the speed of ink penetration into the substrate.

1. Edward W. Washburn (1921). "The Dynamics of Capillary Flow". Physical Review 17 (3): 273.
Bibcode:1921PhRv...17..273W (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1921PhRv...17..273W). doi:10.1103/PhysRev.17.273
(https://dx.doi.org/10.1103%2FPhysRev.17.273).
2. Lucas, R. (1918). "Ueber das Zeitgesetz des Kapillaren Aufstiegs von Flussigkeiten". Kolloid Z. 23: 15.
doi:10.1007/bf01461107 (https://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2Fbf01461107).
3. Bell, J.M. and Cameron, F.K. (1906). "The flow of liquids through capillary spaces". J. Phys. Chem. 10: 658674.

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Washburn's equation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washburn's_equation

doi:10.1021/j150080a005 (https://dx.doi.org/10.1021%2Fj150080a005).
4. Dullien, F. A. L. (1979). Porous Media: Fluid Transport and Pore Structure. New York: Academic Press.
ISBN 0-12-223650-5.
5. Marco, Brugnara; Claudio, Della Volpe; Stefano, Siboni (2006). "Wettability of porous materials. II. Can we obtain
the contact angle from the Washburn equation?". In Mittal, K. L. Contact Angle, Wettability and Adhesion. Mass.
VSP.
6. Micromeritics, "Autopore IV User Manual", September (2000). Section B, Appendix D: Data Reduction, page D-1.
(Note that the addition of 1N/m2 is not given in this reference, merely implied)
7. Micromeritics, "A new method of interpolation and smooth curve fitting based on local procedures", Journal of the
Association of Computing Machinery (1970). Volume 17(4), pp.589-602.
8. Oliver, J. F. (1982). "Wetting and Penetration of Paper Surfaces" 200. pp. 435453. doi:10.1021/bk-1982-0200.ch022
(https://dx.doi.org/10.1021%2Fbk-1982-0200.ch022). ISSN 1947-5918 (https://www.worldcat.org/issn/1947-5918).
9. Leelajariyakul, S.; Noguchi, H.; Kiatkamjornwong, S. (2008). "Surface-modified and micro-encapsulated pigmented
inks for ink jet printing on textile fabrics". Progress in Organic Coatings 62 (2): 145161.
doi:10.1016/j.porgcoat.2007.10.005 (https://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.porgcoat.2007.10.005). ISSN 0300-9440
(https://www.worldcat.org/issn/0300-9440).

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