Dewetting of a water film between a solid and a rubber

A water film (thickness e) between two hydrophobic solids is metastable. If contact is established (over an initial disc of radius R(0)>R*, where R* is a certain nucleation size), the dry path expands (up to a size R(t) at time t), and the rejected water forms a rim (of width l(t)) around the patch. We predict R(t) approximately t34 / and l(t) approximately t12 /. Typically, over 5*10-3 s we expect R(t) approximately 1.6 mm.