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Numerical simulation of droplet impact on wettability-patterned surfaces

Russo, Antonio; Icardi, Matteo; Elsharkawy, Mohamed; Ceglia, Diego; Asinari, Pietro; Megaridis, Constantine M.

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Authors

Antonio Russo

Mohamed Elsharkawy

Diego Ceglia

Pietro Asinari

Constantine M. Megaridis



Abstract

© 2020 American Physical Society. Numerical simulations have unexplored potential in the study of droplet impact on nonuniform wettability surfaces. In this paper, we compare numerical and experimental results to investigate the application potential of a volume-of-fluid method utilized in OpenFOAM. The approach implements the Kistler model for the dynamic contact angle of impacting droplets. We begin with an investigation into the influence of the most important solver parameters to optimize the computational setup and reach the best compromise between computational cost and solution errors, as assessed in comparison to experimental results. Next, we verify the accuracy of the predictions for droplet impact on uniformly hydrophilic or superhydrophobic surfaces. Benchmarking the maximal spreading factor, contact, and spreading times, as well as contact-line behavior, we show strong agreement between the present numerical results and the models of Pasandideh-Fard, Phys. Fluids 8, 650 (1996)PHFLE61070-663110.1063/1.868850 and Clanét, J. Fluid Mech. 517, 199 (2004)JFLSA70022-112010.1017/S0022112004000904. Lastly, we demonstrate the capability of the model to accurately predict outcome behaviors of droplets striking distributed-wettability surfaces, which introduce 3D outcome characteristics, even in orthogonal impact. The model successfully predicts droplet splitting and vectoring, as reported in the experiments of Schutzius, Sci. Rep. 4, 7029 (2014)2045-232210.1038/srep07029. Finally, we demonstrate a configuration wherein a droplet centrally strikes a circular disk of different wettability than its surrounding domain. The main contribution of the present paper is a numerical model capable of accurately simulating droplet impact on spatially nonuniform wettability patterns of any foreseeable design.

Citation

Russo, A., Icardi, M., Elsharkawy, M., Ceglia, D., Asinari, P., & Megaridis, C. M. (2020). Numerical simulation of droplet impact on wettability-patterned surfaces. Physical Review Fluids, 5(7), Article 074002. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.5.074002

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jun 16, 2020
Online Publication Date Jul 16, 2020
Publication Date Jul 1, 2020
Deposit Date Jul 23, 2020
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Physical Review Fluids
Electronic ISSN 2469-990X
Publisher American Physical Society
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 5
Issue 7
Article Number 074002
DOI https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.5.074002
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/4783489
Publisher URL https://journals.aps.org/prfluids/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.5.074002

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