Advection and Taylor–Aris dispersion in rivulet flow

Abstract

Motivated by the need for a better understanding of the transport of solutes in microfluidic flows with free surfaces, the advection and dispersion of a passive solute in steady unidirectional flow of a thin uniform rivulet on an inclined planar substrate driven by gravity and/or a uniform longitudinal surface shear stress are analysed. Firstly, we describe the short-time advection of both an initially semi-infinite and an initially finite slug of solute of uniform concentration. Secondly, we describe the long-time Taylor–Aris dispersion of an initially finite slug of solute. In particular, we obtain the general expression for the effective diffusivity for Taylor–Aris dispersion in such a rivulet, and discuss in detail its different interpretations in the special case of a rivulet on a vertical substrate.