Contact line motion enabled by piezoviscosity

We consider the contact line motion of a liquid over a solid, allowing the viscosity of the liquid to increase exponentially with the pressure (piezoviscosity). Using the lubrication approximation, we show that the viscous contact line singularity is regularized, and the contact line can move. In the limit of small speeds, the piezoviscous model is equivalent to a slip model, whose slip length increases linearly with speed. We confirm our theory by comparing to a numerical calculation of the intrinsic length scale of a moving contact line, and illustrate our result using the example of a spreading drop.