Boundary conditions in the vicinity of a dynamic contact line: experimental investigation of viscous drops sliding down an inclined plane.

To probe the microscopic balance of forces close to a moving contact line, the boundary conditions around viscous drops sliding down an inclined plane are investigated. At first, the variation of the contact angle as a function of the scale of analysis is discussed. The dynamic contact angle is measured at a scale of 6 mum all around sliding drops for different volumes and speeds. We show that it depends only on the capillary number based on the local liquid velocity, measured by particle tracking. This velocity turns out to be normal to the contact line everywhere. It indirectly proves that, in comparison with the divergence involved in the normal direction, the viscous stress is not balanced by intermolecular forces in the direction tangential to the contact line, so that any motion in this last direction gets damped.