Search for: All records

We numerically study drop impact on slippery lubricated surfaces at varied impact speeds to comprehend the cloaking of the water drop by the lubricant. We employ a multi-material and multi-phase interface reconstruction method to capture the interaction between the drop and the lubricants of varying interfacial tensions. We demonstrate that cloaking occurs when lubricant water interfacial tensions are low and impact speeds are low. Our research demonstrates that the thickness of the encapsulating lubricant layer varies over time. At moderate impact speeds of 0.25 and 0.5 m/s, the drop displaces a large amount of lubricant, generating a lubricant–water jet, as we also demonstrate. At high impact speeds of 5 and 30 m/s, a secondary impingement forms, which displaces a significant amount of lubricant to reveal the underneath substrate that was not visible at lower impact speeds. Finally, we investigate the drop impact on lubricant infused micro-wells with varying spacing. We find that small spacing between the micro-well walls can limit lubricant drainage and displacement. The substrates with micro-wells exhibit far less splashing than those without. Furthermore, we demonstrate that micro-wells are better at preserving lubricants than substrates without micro-wells.

 

In this paper, we numerically investigate drop impact on a micro-well substrate to understand the phenomena of non-wettability. The simulation is carried out by solving three-dimensional incompressible Navier–Stokes equations using a density projection method and an adaptive grid refinement algorithm. A very sharp interface reconstruction algorithm, known as the moment-of-fluid method, is utilized to identify the multi-materials and multi-phases present in the computation domain. Our simulations predicted that a micro-well with a deep cavity can significantly reduce a solid–liquid contact in the event of drop impact. The results from the drop impact on the micro-well substrate are compared with results from drop impact on a flat substrate. Significant differences are observed between these two cases in terms of wetted area, spreading ratio, and kinetic energy. Our simulation shows that under the same conditions, a drop is more apt to jump from a micro-well substrate than from a flat surface, resulting in smaller wetted area and shorter contact time. Based on the simulation results, we draw a drop jumping region map. The micro-well substrate has a larger region than the flat surface substrate. Finally, we present a comparative analysis between a flat substrate and a substrate constructed with a dense array of micro-wells and, therefore, show that the array of micro-wells outperforms the smooth substrate with regard to non-wettability and drop wicking capability.