LAUSR

In this paper, we demonstrate the effects of gravity on the interfacial thermo-hydrodynamics as modulated by the patterned wettability gradients placed on the surfaces of a narrow fluidic channel. We investigate the dynamics of contact line motion of two-component incompressible immiscible liquid mixtures under the framework of a thermodynamically consistent phase field model. We validate our model with the experimental results available in the literature in the purview of thermocapillary-actuated microscale transport. We show that the gravity-induced forces in the presence of the thermocapillarity effect play a unique role on the interfacial dynamics at small scales, leading to a uniform movement of the interface in the channel, and offer a greater degree of controllability in the filling/wetting rate in the capillary. We show that the change in patch width, placed on the walls of the channel, leads to a change in the filling dynamics into the capillary. Also, we investigate the rate of different dissipa...