Coalescence of pendant droplets on an inclined super-hydrophobic substrate

Abstract

Dynamics of micro droplets, coalescence underneath an inclined hydrophobic surface is explored, experimentally as well as computationally. Such a situation often arises during dropwise condensation, atmospheric dew formation, condensation in green houses, and metal vapor condensation during enrichment process, etc. Coalescence induced instability in the pendant mode is an effective means of passively enhancing heat transfer coefficient during dropwise condensation. Inclined substrates have natural advantages in terms of rendering effective passive sweeping of drops from the substrate, thereby exposing fresh preferred sites for renucleation. As compared to coalescences of sessile droplets, pendant mode induces flow instabilities at a much faster rate, thereby enhancing the associated heat/ mass transport characteristics. Against this background, the present study reports an experiment involving the coalescence of water drops in pendant mode on an inclined hydrophobic copper substrate of size 20 mm × 20 mm × 2 mm. The substrate has been prepared by developing a monolayer of n-octadecanethiol on it by chemical action. This work focuses on fundamental understanding of the mechanism of drop coalescence underneath an inclined superhydrophobic substrate to provide aid in controlling and promoting dropwise mode of condensation in order to increase efficiency of condenser or to aid in enrichment of heavy liquid metals in closed vacuum condition. The coalescence process gets initiated by the extra available surface energy which gets released in the process. Immediately afterwards, the process of oscillating free surface formed during the coalescence is limited by viscous and inertia forces. The free surface oscillations can last ~ 10 to 100 milliseconds, depending on the size of droplets and their thermophysical properties. Depending on the local wettability, size of drops which are coalescing, substrate inclination and pinning/de-pinning behavior, droplet instability conditions are generated, which result in its slide-off motion on the substrate.

Lattice Boltzmann modeling for the coalescence between a free droplet in gases and a sessile droplet on wettable substrate with contact angle hysteresis

“…23 experimentally investigated the coalescing dynamics of droplets on highly wettable substrates, and revealed that the width of liquid bridge varying with time follows power law in initial stage. Sellier and Trelluyer 24 also revealed that the liquid bridge varying with time follows power law, and the exponent depends on the driving factors of coalescence. Kapur 22 analyzed the dynamics of contact lines during the coalescence of droplets.…”