Fabio Villa

A new model to predict the infuence of surface temperature on contact angle

The measurement of the equilibrium contact angle (ECA) of a weakly evaporating sessile drop becomes very challenging when the temperatures are higher than ambient temperature. Since the ECA is a critical input parameter for numerical simulations of diabatic processes, it is relevant to know the variation of the ECA with the fluid and wall temperatures. Several research groups have studied the effect of temperature on ECA either experimentally, with direct measures, or numerically, using molecular dynamic simulations. However, there is some disagreement between the authors. In this paper two possible theoretical models are presented, describing how the ECA varies with the surface temperature. These two models (called Decreasing Trend Model and Unsymmetrical Trend Model, respectively) are compared with experimental measurements. Within the experimental errors, the equilibrium contact angle shows a decrease with increasing surface temperatures on the hydrophilic surface. Conversely the ECA appears approximately constant on hydrophobic surfaces for increasing wall temperatures. The two conclusions for practical applications for weakly evaporating conditions are that (i) the higher the ECA, the smaller is the effect of the surface temperature, (ii) a good evaluation of the decrease of the ECA with the surface temperature can be obtained by the proposed DTM approach.

Pool Boiling Versus Surface Wettability Characteristics

The present paper reports results of pool boiling experiments on surfaces with different wettabilities. The main aim is to identify and quantify the difference in pool boiling characteristics (Onset of Nucleate Boiling-ONB, bubble detachment diameter and time) between Hydrophilic Surfaces (HPS) and Super-Hydrophobic Surfaces (SHS). A combined sample (SHS_D) with an inner SHS part and an outer HPS part is also tested, which clearly shows that the Super-Hydrophobic surface is a preferential area for the ONB, and allows to control the bubbling position. It is found that not only the ONB, but also the bubble growth and detachment characteristics are highly influenced by the wettability of the heated surface. The analysis of the experimental results reveals that SHSs require a lower wall-superheat for ONB to occur. Moreover, in SHSs higher bubble departure times as well as higher equivalent bubble detachment diameters are encountered. The vapour phase tends to stick stronger on a SHS than on a HPS, showing a tendency to create a vapour film. Furthermore, using a post processing method developed in MATLAB, the apparent contact angle at various successive time instances is extracted from the experimental snapshots for the cases of the HPS and the SHS_D. Finally, the capability of a previously verified, enhanced, CFD-based, VOF numerical model [1-3] to capture adequately the apparent triple line contact angle, from the nucleation up to the departure of an isolated bubble from the heated surface, is checked for one of the considered superheats for a HPS case