A numerical study of the effect of roughness topology on surface hydrophobicity

Abstract eng:
Understanding the various effects of micro and sub-micron roughness on dynamics of micro-droplet is of interest for many industrial applications such as aerospace industries, spray coating, etc. In this paper, numerical modeling of roughness topology through series of micro arrays is performed to explore the direct effect of surface roughness on super-hydrophobic enhancement, droplet penetration depth, and droplet restitution coefficient. The comparative study is performed on smooth hydrophobic surface and three rough surfaces following similar pattern with varying width to pitch ratio. The intrinsic contact angle of 111◦ is applied to all surfaces. Mimicking the impact of cloud particles, the droplet size of 20 µm with terminal velocity of 1.6 m.s−1 is opted in this study. The simulation successfully captured different stages of a bouncing drop and the air beneath droplet . It was observed that decreasing the width to pitch ratio of arrays, will results in higher droplet mobility, and higher apparent contact angle.

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