DOI

https://doi.org/10.25772/Z86T-0W48

Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2213-4187

Defense Date

2018

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering

First Advisor

Reza Mohammadi

Abstract

Self-cleaning, anti-corrosion, anti-icing, dropwise-condensation, and drag-reduction are some applications in which superhydrophobic surfaces are implemented. To date, all the studies associated with superhydrophobic surfaces have been dedicated to understanding the liquid interaction with surfaces that are macroscopically smooth. The current study investigates the solid-liquid interaction of such surfaces which are fully decorated with macroscopic ridges (ribbed surfaces). In particular, the drop motion and impact on our newly designed non-wettable ribbed surface have been investigated in this work. Our experimental investigations have shown that liquid drops move faster on the ribbed surfaces due to lower friction induced by such a surface pattern. Moreover, an impacting droplet shows shorter contact time on ribbed surfaces. This concludes that ribbed surface pattern can be an efficient alternative design for the related applications.

Besides the experimental studies, the theoretical analyses done in this work have led to, firstly a scaling model to predict descent velocity of a rolling viscous drops on an inclined non-wettable surface more accurately. Secondly, for curved superhydrophobic surfaces a scaling model which correlates the contact time of the impacting drop to its impact velocity has been developed. At the end, the knowledge obtained from this work has led to a special surface design which exhibits a contact time shorter than the inertial-capillary time scale, an unprecedented phenomenon.

Rights

© The Author

Is Part Of

VCU University Archives

Is Part Of

VCU Theses and Dissertations

Date of Submission

5-9-2018

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