Numerical Simulation of Droplet Impact on an Isothermal Micro-Grooved Solid Surface

The process of a micro droplet of distilled water impact on an isothermal micro-grooved solid surface is numerical simulated in this paper. To accurately represent the droplet dynamics, special attention is given to the variation of the droplet pressure and velocity, the movement of the free surface between two fluids and the deforming of the droplet after impact. The Volume Of Fluid method is used to track the position and the shape of the liquid region. The PISO algorithm is selected to solve the pressure-velocity coupling. The influences of the droplet initial velocity, the contact angle for water on the surface perpendicular to the groove direction and the surface tension coefficient on the impact process are discussed in detail. The results show that the droplet spreading factor improves notably with the increase of the initial velocity, and reduces with the increase of the contact angle. When the surface tension coefficient increases, the spreading factor reduces greatly. The spreading factor is the largest and the time elapsing is the longest in the case of σ = 0.038 N/m.