THE USE OF DELAUNAY CURVES FOR THE WETTING OF AXISYMMETRICAL BODIES

The wetting of a given solid figure is of importance in many fields of science ranging from physics and materials science to geology and med icine. An important special case that is generic to many situations is the wetting of an axisymmetric solid by a liquid of the same material . This problem is equivalent to minimizing the total surface area of t he condensed phase (liquid + solid). Its solution is a mosaic of wet a nd dry regions on the solid. The shape of the wet regions is described by Delaunay curves. The analytic properties of these curves are discu ssed, and the wetting of several interesting solid configurations is p resented.