Coalescence of spreading droplets on a wettable substrate.

Fast drop movements resulting from the phase change on a gradient surface.

The movement of liquid drops on a surface with a radial surface tension gradient is described here. When saturated steam passes over a colder hydrophobic substrate, numerous water droplets nucleate and grow by coalescence with the surrounding drops. The merging droplets exhibit two-dimensional random motion somewhat like the Brownian movements of colloidal particles. When a surface tension grad...

Electro-Coalescence of an Aqueous Droplet at an Oil–Water Interface with an Investigation of Secondary Droplets Formation

Molecular dynamics simulations of nanodroplet spreading on solid surfaces, effect of droplet size

Abstract Molecular dynamics simulations were performed to study the spreading characteristics of nano-sized droplets on solid surfaces. The spreading behavior was analyzed in terms of the temporal evolution of the dynamic contact angle and spreading diameter for wettable, partially wettable and nonwettable surfaces. The computational model was validated through qualitative comparison with the m...

Radial Wettable Gradient of Hot Surface to Control Droplets Movement in Directions

A radial wettable gradient was fabricated on the surface of graphite plate by a simple one-step anodic oxidation process. It was found that the direction and value of the wettable gradient could be easily controlled by adjusting current and oxidation time gradient. With the increase of surface temperature, droplets on surface not only exhibited the transition of boiling mode, but also showed th...

The dynamics of the impact and coalescence of droplets on a solid surface.

A simple experimental setup to study the impact and coalescence of deposited droplets is described. Droplet impact and coalescence have been investigated by high-speed particle image velocimetry. Velocity fields near the liquid-substrate interface have been observed for the impact and coalescence of 2.4 mm diameter droplets of glycerol∕water striking a flat transparent substrate in air. The exp...