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Droplet asymmetry and wetting dynamics on irregularly roughened surfaces

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Abstract

This study illustrates pervasive challenges in studying wetting dynamics, including dynamic contact angles, on irregularly roughened surfaces. We demonstrate that asymmetric water droplet shapes occur more than 50% of the time during static and dynamic contact angle measurements on sandblasted Zn-plated stainless steel with a polymeric overcoat. The pinning that causes the asymmetric drop shape distortion on horizontal surfaces also influences the sliding behavior on inclined surfaces. These effects lead to a poor correlation between the measured dynamic contact angles and the observed sliding angles (critical tilt angles). Our work emphasizes that large variations in the values of these dynamic wetting parameters are inherent to the heterogeneity of the surface roughness, and thus they limit the usefulness of standard dynamic wetting criteria. These findings have implications for academic and industrial research focused on making coated materials that have consistent wettability properties throughout their usage life cycle.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Petroleum Research Newfoundland & Labrador (PRNL) Grant C15-03 for financial support for this research. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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Author notes

  1. Justin Elms

    Present address: Office of Applied Research and Innovation, College of the North Atlantic, St. John’s, NL, A1C 5P7, Canada

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, NL, A1B 3X5, Canada

    Kewei Shi & Xili Duan

  2. Department of Physics and Physical Oceanography, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, NL, A1B 3X7, Canada

    Justin Elms & Kristin M. Poduska

Authors
  1. Kewei Shi
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  2. Justin Elms
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Correspondence to Kristin M. Poduska.

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A PDF file contains additional details about gravitational effects on tilted droplets, representative raw data for volume-changed droplets, more data for droplets on tilted surfaces.

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Shi, K., Elms, J., Duan, X. et al. Droplet asymmetry and wetting dynamics on irregularly roughened surfaces. J Coat Technol Res 18, 911–919 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11998-020-00456-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11998-020-00456-8

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