Mixed finite element method for electrowetting on dielectric with contact line pinning (Q962980)

A mixed finite element method is presented for a model of 2D droplet motion driven by electrowetting. This approach is based on a stable semi-implicit discretization of curvature and incorporates local contact line pinning forces via a variational inequality as well as viscous damping. The authors establish existence and uniqueness results for the semi-discrete and fully discrete problems, as well as an error analysis for the finite element approximation. They also prove the convergence of an Uzawa method for solving the time-discrete system at a single time step. Experimental convergence results that explore the limits and optimality of the theory are established in the last part of the paper.