Pinning-Depinning Mechanisms of the Contact Line during Evaporation of Microdroplets on Rough Surfaces: A Lattice Boltzmann Simulation.

In this study, pinning and depinning of the contact line during droplet evaporation on the rough surfaces with randomly distributed structures is theoretically analyzed and numerically investigated. A fast Fourier transformation (FFT) method is used to generate the rough surfaces, whose skewness ( Sk), kurtosis ( K), and root-mean-square ( Rq) are obtained from real surfaces. A thermal multiphase LB model is proposed to simulate the isothermal pinning and depinning processes. The evaporation processes are recorded with the variations in contact angle, contact radius, and drop shape. It is found that the drops sitting on rough surfaces show different behavior from those on smoother surfaces. The former shows a pinned contact line during almost the whole lifetime. By contrast, the latter experiences a stick-slip-jump behavior until the drop disappears. At mesoscopic scale, the pinning of the contact line is actually a slow motion rather than a complete immobilization at the sharp edges. The dynamic equilibrium is achieved by the self-adjustment of the contact line according to each edge.

Lattice Boltzmann Simulation of Droplets Impacting on Superhydrophobic Surfaces with Randomly Distributed Rough Structures.

Superhydrophobic surfaces have attracted much attention in environmental control because of their excellent water-repellent properties. A successful design of superhydrophobic surfaces requires a correct understanding of the influences of surface roughness on water-repellent behaviors. Here, a new approach, a mesoscale lattice Boltzmann simulation approach, is proposed and used to model the dynamic behavior of droplets impacting on surfaces with randomly distributed rough microstructures. The fast Fourier transformation method is used to generate non-Gaussian randomly distributed rough surfaces, with the skewness and kurtosis obtained from real surfaces. Then, droplets impacting on the rough surfaces are modeled. It is found that the shape of droplet spreading is obviously affected by the distributions of surface asperity. Decreasing the skewness and keeping the kurtosis around 3 is an effective method to enhance the ability of droplet rebound. The new approach gives more detailed insights into the design of superhydrophobic surfaces.