The effect of surface pattern property on the advancing motion of three-dimensional droplets

Abstract

We investigate numerically the advancing motion of 3D droplets spreading on physically flat chemically heterogeneous surfaces with periodic structures. We use the Navier-Stokes-Cahn-Hilliard equations with the generalized Navier boundary conditions to model the motion of droplets. Based on a convex splitting scheme, we have done numerical simulations and compared the results between different surface patterns quantitatively. We study the effect of pattern property on the advancing motion of three phase contact lines, the critical volume at the contact line jump and the effective advancing angles. By increasing the volume of droplet slowly on heterogeneous surfaces with different pattern property, we find that the advancing contact line approaches an equiangular octagon for the patterned surface with periodic squares separated by channels and approaches a regular hexagon for the patterned surface with periodic circles in regular hexagonal arrays. The shape of three-phase contact line is much more determined by the macro structure of the pattern than the micro structure of the pattern in each period.