Global geometry and the equilibrium shapes of liquid drops on fibers

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McHale, G. and Newton, M.I. ORCID: 0000-0003-4231-1002, 2002. Global geometry and the equilibrium shapes of liquid drops on fibers. Colloids and Surfaces A - Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects, 206 (13), pp. 79-86. ISSN 0927-7757

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0927-7757(02)00081-X

Abstract

The wetting of a planar surface depends upon both the chemical nature of the surface and the local geometry. On a chemically identical solid surface in the form of a fiber the wetting is significantly different due to the global geometry of the cylindrical shape. A fluid that fully wets a material in the form of a smooth planar surface may not wet the same material when presented as a smooth fiber surface. On a fiber, a vanishing contact angle is not a sufficient condition for the formation of a wetting film; a macroscopic barrel shaped droplet with a vanishing equilibrium contact angle can exist. Moreover, two distinctly different geometric shapes of droplet are possible: a barrel and a clam-shell. In this work, these two shapes are considered using an analytical result for the barrel shape and a finite element calculation for the clam-shell shape. The surface free energies for these two conformations are evaluated for contact angles between 14 and 70° and for a wide range of droplet volumes.

Item Type:

Journal article

Publication Title:

Colloids and Surfaces A - Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects

Creators:

McHale, G. and Newton, M.I.

Publisher:

Elsevier Science

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam

Date:

2002