Droplet on a fiber: Geometrical shape and contact angle

Authors

Xiangfa Wu, Department of Engineering Mechanics, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Yuris A. Dzenis, Department of Engineering Mechanics, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Date of this Version

7-4-2006

Comments

Published in Acta Mechanica 185 (2006), pp. 215–225; doi 10.1007/s00707-006-0349-0 Copyright © 2006 Springer-Verlag. Used by permission.

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the geometrical shape, wetting length, and contact angle of a microdroplet on a fiber by using the method free energy variation. The governing equation and relevant boundary conditions of the microdroplet were re-derived based on the free energy variation of the droplet/ fiber system. The geometrical shape of the droplet was determined as the combination of Legendre’s elliptical functions of the first and second kinds, corresponding to the previous results in literature [6]. For contact angle h >15 degree, a novel efficient semi-analytic approach was proposed to extract the contact angle from experimental data. The given approach can be used as theoretical basis of determining surface tension of fluids based on a sessile drop on a fiber.