Numerical simulation of droplet impact on wettability-patterned surfaces

Antonio Russo, Matteo Icardi, Mohamed Elsharkawy, Diego Ceglia, Pietro Asinari, and Constantine M. Megaridis
Phys. Rev. Fluids 5, 074002 – Published 16 July 2020
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Abstract

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 et al., Phys. Fluids 8, 650 (1996) and Clanét et al., J. Fluid Mech. 517, 199 (2004). 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 et al., Sci. Rep. 4, 7029 (2014). 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.

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  • Received 11 December 2019
  • Accepted 16 June 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.5.074002

©2020 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Fluid DynamicsGeneral Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Antonio Russo1,2, Matteo Icardi3, Mohamed Elsharkawy1, Diego Ceglia2, Pietro Asinari2, and Constantine M. Megaridis1,*

  • 1Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60607, USA
  • 2Department of Energy, Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, Torino, 10129, Italy
  • 3School of Mathematical Sciences, University of Nottingham, NG7 2RD, United Kingdom

  • *Corresponding author: cmm@uic.edu

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Issue

Vol. 5, Iss. 7 — July 2020

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