Shock separation in wetting films driven by thermal gradients

Previous investigation has shown that in certain cases thermally driven wet ting films may spread over surfaces without the usual fingering at the cont act line. Numerical simulations suggest that the contact line region may be composed of two shock waves, a trailing Lax shock and a leading undercompr essive shock, which advance at different speeds and separate. Results are p resented here that show that the separation speed is indeed similar to that predicted by numerical simulations. The role of the thickness of the prewe tted film on the solid surface is also investigated.