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Calculating the volume of water droplets on topographically-modified, micro-grooved aluminium surfaces.

Author(s) : SOMMERS A. D., JACOBI A. M.

Summary

Water droplets on micro-patterned surfaces consisting of parallel grooves tens of microns in width and depth is considered, and a method for calculating the droplet volume on these surfaces is presented. In this method, a circular cross-sectional area is extruded the length of the droplet where the chord of the extruded circle is fixed by the width of the droplet. The maximum apparent contact angle is assumed to occur along the side of the droplet because of the surface energy barrier to wetting caused by the grooves - a behaviour that was observed experimentally. When applied to water droplets condensed onto a micro-grooved aluminium surface, this method was shown to calculate the actual droplet volume to within 10 for 88% of the droplets analyzed. This method is useful for estimating the volume of retained water droplets on micro-textured surfaces where the surface micro-channels are aligned parallel to gravity and both heat and mass transfer occur.

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Details

  • Original title: Calculating the volume of water droplets on topographically-modified, micro-grooved aluminium surfaces.
  • Record ID : 2009-0541
  • Languages: English
  • Source: 2008 Purdue Conferences. 19th International Compressor Engineering Conference at Purdue & 12th International Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Conference at Purdue [CD-ROM].
  • Publication date: 2008/07/14

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