Film flow over strongly undulated bottom profiles at low Reynolds numbers – Experimental study

We study gravity driven films of a Newtonian fluid flowing down sinusoidal bottom profiles. We give experimental evidence of vortices in the film flow under creeping flow conditions down to Reynolds numbers of the order of 10^–5. The vortices are created in the valleys of the undulated bottom profile. They are visualized employing a particle image velocimeter with fluorescent tracers. It turns out that the vortices are generated beyond a critical film thickness.