Droplet Impact on Suspended Metallic Meshes: Effects of Wettability, Reynolds and Weber Numbers


Date

2020-06

Publication Type

Journal Article

ETH Bibliography

yes

Citations

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Abstract

Liquid penetration analysis in porous media is of great importance in a wide range of applications such as ink jet printing technology, painting and textile design. This article presents an investigation of droplet impingement onto metallic meshes, aiming to provide insights by identifying and quantifying impact characteristics that are difficult to measure experimentally. For this purpose, an enhanced Volume-Of-Fluid (VOF) numerical simulation framework is utilised, previously developed in the general context of the OpenFOAM CFD Toolbox. Droplet impacts on metallic meshes are performed both experimentally and numerically with satisfactory degree of agreement. From the experimental investigation three main outcomes are observed—deposition, partial imbibition, and penetration. The penetration into suspended meshes leads to spectacular multiple jetting below the mesh. A higher amount of liquid penetration is linked to higher impact velocity, lower viscosity and larger pore size dimension. An estimation of the liquid penetration is given in order to evaluate the impregnation properties of the meshes. From the parametric analysis it is shown that liquid viscosity affects the adhesion characteristics of the drops significantly, whereas droplet break-up after the impact is mostly controlled by surface tension. Additionally, wettability characteristics are found to play an important role in both liquid penetration and droplet break-up below the mesh.

Publication status

published

Editor

Book title

Journal / series

Volume

5 (2)

Pages / Article No.

81

Publisher

MDPI

Event

Edition / version

Methods

Software

Geographic location

Date collected

Date created

Subject

droplet impact; porous surfaces; VOF modelling; OpenFOAM

Organisational unit

03499 - Koumoutsakos, Petros (ehemalig) / Koumoutsakos, Petros (former) check_circle
02803 - Collegium Helveticum / Collegium Helveticum check_circle

Notes

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