Competition between thermal and surfactant-induced Marangoni flow in evaporating sessile droplets.

HYPOTHESIS: Thermal Marangoni flow in evaporating sessile water droplets is much weaker in experiments than predicted theoretically. Often this is attributed to surfactant contamination, but there have not been any in-depth analyses that consider the full fluid and surfactant dynamics. It is expected that more insight into this problem can be gained by using numerical models to analyze the interplay between thermal Marangoni flow and surfactant dynamics in terms of dimensionless parameters. SIMULATIONS: Two numerical models are implemented: one dynamic model based on lubrication theory and one quasi-stationary model, that allows for arbitrary contact angles. FINDINGS: It is found that insoluble surfactants can suppress the thermal Marangoni flow if their concentration is sufficiently large and evaporation and diffusion are sufficiently slow. Soluble surfactants, however, either reduce or increase the interfacial velocity, depending on their sorption kinetics. Furthermore, insoluble surfactant concentrations that cause an order 0.1% surface tension reduction are sufficient to reduce the spatially averaged tangential flow velocity at the interface by a factor 100. For larger contact angles and smaller droplets this required concentration is larger (typically <1% surface tension reduction). The numerical models are mutually validated by comparing their results in cases where both are valid.

Absorption of surfactant-laden droplets into porous media: A numerical study.

HYPOTHESIS: Droplets can absorb into permeable substrates due to capillarity. It is hypothesized that the contact line dynamics influence this process and that an unpinned contact line results in slower absorption than a pinned contact line, since the contact area between the droplet and the substrate will decrease over time for the former. Furthermore, it is expected that surfactants can be used to accelerate the absorption. SIMULATIONS: Lubrication theory is employed to model the droplet and Darcy's law is combined with the conservation law of mass to describe the absorption dynamics. For the surfactant transport, several convection-diffusion-adsorption equations are solved. FINDINGS: It is found that moving contact lines result in a parabola-shaped wetted area and a slower absorption and a deeper penetration depth than pinned contact lines. The evolution of the penetration depth was quantitatively validated by comparison with two experimental studies from literature. Surfactants were shown to accelerate the absorption process, but only if their adsorption kinetics are slow compared to the absorption. Otherwise, all surfactant adsorbs onto the pore walls before reaching the wetting front, resulting in the same absorption rate as without surfactants. This behavior agrees with both experimental and analytical literature.

Statistical-learning method for predicting hydrodynamic drag, lift, and pitching torque on spheroidal particles.

A statistical learning approach is presented to predict the dependency of steady hydrodynamic interactions of thin oblate spheroidal particles on particle orientation and Reynolds number. The conventional empirical correlations that approximate such dependencies are replaced by a neural-network-based correlation which can provide accurate predictions for high-dimensional input spaces occurring in flows with nonspherical particles. By performing resolved simulations of steady uniform flow at 1≤Re≤120 around a 1:10 spheroidal body, a database consisting of Reynolds number- and orientation-dependent drag, lift, and pitching torque acting on the particle is collected. A multilayer perceptron is trained and validated with the generated database. The performance of the neural network is tested in a point-particle simulation of the buoyancy-driven motion of a 1:10 disk. Our statistical approach outperforms existing empirical correlations in terms of accuracy. The agreement between the numerical results and the experimental observations prove the potential of the method.

Marangoni circulation in evaporating droplets in the presence of soluble surfactants.

HYPOTHESIS: Soluble surfactants in evaporating sessile droplets can cause a circulatory Marangoni flow. However, it is not straightforward to predict for what cases this vortical flow arises. It is hypothesized that the occurrence of Marangoni circulation can be predicted from the values of a small number of dimensionless parameters. SIMULATIONS: A numerical model for the drop evolution is developed using lubrication theory. Surfactant transport is implemented by means of convection-diffusion-adsorption equations. Results are compared to literature. FINDINGS: It is shown that stronger evaporation, slower adsorption kinetics and lower solubility of the surfactants all tend to increasingly suppress Marangoni circulation. These results are found to be consistent with both experimental and numerical results from literature and can explain qualitative differences in flow behavior of surfactant-laden droplets. Furthermore, diffusion also tends to counteract Marangoni flow, where bulk diffusion has a more significant influence than surface diffusion. Also, the formation of micelles is found to slightly suppress Marangoni circulation. Experimental results from literature, however, show that in some cases circulatory behavior is enhanced by micelles, possibly even resulting in qualitative changes in the flow. Potential explanations for these differences are given and extensions to the model are suggested to improve its consistency with experiments.

Wall-induced anisotropy effects on turbulent mixing in channel flow: A network-based analysis.

Turbulent mixing is studied in the Lagrangian framework with an approach based on the complex network formalism. We consider the motion of passive, noninertial particles inside a turbulent channel simulated at Re_{τ}=950. The time-dependent network is built to evaluate the transfer of tracers between thin wall-parallel layers which partition the channel in the wall-normal direction. By doing so, we are able to assess the spatial and temporal complexities arising from turbulence dynamics and their influence on the mixing process. This approach highlights the effects of small-scale features of turbulent flow structures and also the larger scale effects determined by wall-induced anisotropy. Complex networks, coupled to the Lagrangian description of turbulence, are effective in providing novel insights into inhomogeneous turbulence and mixing.

The evaporation of surfactant-laden droplets: A comparison between contact line models.

HYPOTHESIS: There are two different sharp-interface models for moving contact lines: slip models and precursor film models. While both models predict a mostly constant contact angle during the evaporation of pure droplets, it is expected that they behave differently when surfactants are present, because of the inherent dissimilarities in their respective interface definitions. SIMULATIONS: Both contact line models are numerically implemented using lubrication theory to analyze evaporating droplets. A convection-diffusion equation is implemented for insoluble surfactants. For pure droplets the models are compared with experiments performed by Nguyen et al. (2012). FINDINGS: The two contact line models show results comparable to the experiments with pure droplets. If insoluble surfactants are present, the slip model increasingly shows pinning-like behavior as the initial surfactant concentration is increased. This 'quasi-pinning' is found to be consistent with experimental results in literature. The precursor film model, in contrast, shows no significant change when surfactants are added. This lack of change is a result of surfactant flowing from the droplet into the precursor film and vice versa. While suggesting potential solutions to this unphysical behavior, it is concluded that in the context of surfactants, slip models are preferable over precursor film models given the current state of the art.

Spatial characterization of turbulent channel flow via complex networks.

A network-based analysis of a turbulent channel flow numerically solved at Re_{τ}=180 is proposed as an innovative perspective for the spatial characterization of the flow field. Two spatial networks corresponding to the streamwise and wall-normal velocity components are built, where nodes represent portions of volume of the physical domain. For each network, links are active if the correlation coefficient of the corresponding velocity component between pairs of nodes is sufficiently high, thus unveiling the strongest kinematic relations. Several network measures are studied in order to explore the interrelations between nodes and their neighbors. Specifically, long-range links are localized between near-wall regions and associated with the temporal persistence of coherent patterns, namely high and low speed streaks. Furthermore, long-range links play a crucial role as intermediary for the kinematic information flow, as emerges from the analysis of indirect connections between nodes. The proposed approach provides a framework to investigate spatial structures of the turbulent dynamics, showing the full potential of complex networks. Although the network analysis is based on the two-point correlation, it is able to advance the level of information, by exploiting the texture created by active links in all directions. Based on the observed findings, the current approach can pave the way for an enhanced spatial interpretation of the turbulence dynamics.

Modeling the evaporation of sessile multi-component droplets.

We extended a mathematical model for the drying of sessile droplets, based on the lubrication approximation, to binary mixture droplets. This extension is relevant for e.g. inkjet printing applications, where ink consisting of several components are used. The extension involves the generalization of an established vapor diffusion-limited evaporation model to multi-component mixtures. The different volatilities of the liquid components generate a composition gradient at the liquid-air interface. The model takes the composition-dependence of the mass density, viscosity, surface tension, mutual diffusion coefficient and thermodynamic activities into account. This leads to a variety of effects ranging from solutal Marangoni flow over deviations from the typical spherical cap shape to an entrapped residual amount of the more volatile component at later stages of the drying. These aspects are discussed in detail on the basis of the numerical results for water-glycerol and water-ethanol droplets. The results show good agreement with experimental findings. Finally, the accuracy of the lubrication approximation is assessed by comparison with a finite element method.

Evaporation-triggered microdroplet nucleation and the four life phases of an evaporating Ouzo drop.

Evaporating liquid droplets are omnipresent in nature and technology, such as in inkjet printing, coating, deposition of materials, medical diagnostics, agriculture, the food industry, cosmetics, or spills of liquids. Whereas the evaporation of pure liquids, liquids with dispersed particles, or even liquid mixtures has intensively been studied over the past two decades, the evaporation of ternary mixtures of liquids with different volatilities and mutual solubilities has not yet been explored. Here we show that the evaporation of such ternary mixtures can trigger a phase transition and the nucleation of microdroplets of one of the components of the mixture. As a model system, we pick a sessile Ouzo droplet (as known from daily life-a transparent mixture of water, ethanol, and anise oil) and reveal and theoretically explain its four life phases: In phase I, the spherical cap-shaped droplet remains transparent while the more volatile ethanol is evaporating, preferentially at the rim of the drop because of the singularity there. This leads to a local ethanol concentration reduction and correspondingly to oil droplet nucleation there. This is the beginning of phase II, in which oil microdroplets quickly nucleate in the whole drop, leading to its milky color that typifies the so-called "Ouzo effect." Once all ethanol has evaporated, the drop, which now has a characteristic nonspherical cap shape, has become clear again, with a water drop sitting on an oil ring (phase III), finalizing the phase inversion. Finally, in phase IV, all water has evaporated, leaving behind a tiny spherical cap-shaped oil drop.

Numerical simulation of the drying of inkjet-printed droplets.

In this paper we study the behavior of an inkjet-printed droplet of a solute dissolved in a solvent on a solid horizontal surface by numerical simulation. An extended model for drying of a droplet and the final distribution of the solute on an impermeable substrate is proposed. The model extends the work by Deegan, Fischer and Kuerten by taking into account convection, diffusion and adsorption of the solute in order to describe more accurately the surface coverage on the substrate. A spherically shaped droplet is considered such that the model can be formulated as an axially symmetric problem. The droplet dynamics is driven by the combined action of surface tension and evaporation. The fluid flow in the droplet is modeled by the Navier-Stokes equation and the continuity equation, where the lubrication approximation is applied. The rate of evaporation is determined by the distribution of vapor pressure in the air surrounding the droplet. Numerical results are compared with experimental results for droplets of various sizes.

Maxwell's demon in the Ranque-Hilsch vortex tube.

A theory was developed that explains energy separation in a vortex tube, known as one of the Maxwellian demons. It appears that there is a unique relation between the pressures in the exits of the vortex tube and its temperatures. Experimental results show that the computed and measured temperatures are in very good agreement.

Modeling the drying of ink-jet-printed structures and experimental verification.

This article presents a numerical model that was developed for the drying of ink-jet-printed polymer solutions after filling the pixels in a polymer LED display. The model extends earlier work presented in the literature while still maintaining a practical approach in limiting the number of input parameters needed. Despite some rigorous assumptions, the model is in fair agreement with experimental data from a pre-pilot ink-jet printing line. Comparison inside a single pixel is shown, as well as a general trend in which the amount of polymer that is transported out of the central part of the pixel decreases with the rate of viscosity increase as a function of polymer concentration. Moreover, the effect of a varying solute diffusion coefficient is studied.