Three-dimensional VOF simulation of droplet impacting on a superhydrophobic surface

It is very important to analyze and study the motion process of droplets impacting superhydrophobic surface, which is of great significance to understand the mechanism of superhydrophobic surface and guide the design and manufacture of superhydrophobic surface. Taking by three-dimensional volume of fluid (VOF) simulation coupling coupled level set (CLS) algorithm, on the one hand, we simulate the morphological changes in the process of droplet impingement, as well as the internal velocity and the pressure distribution; on the other hand, we focus on the effects of droplet impact velocity, surface wettability, surface tension on the dynamics of the droplets. The CLSVOF model inherits the advantages of the VOF model for accurately constructing the phase interface and inherits the advantage that the level set can accurately calculate the surface tension, which improves the accuracy of the calculation of the droplet impact on the superhydrophobic surface. The computed results distinctly demonstrated there were four stages: falling, spreading, shrinking and rebounding. The time history of each stage agreed well with the pictures captured by high-speed camera, which indicated the computational fluid dynamics scheme was effective. Moreover, the motion mechanism of the droplets impacting on the solid surface is elaborated, which was helpful to control the solid–liquid interface to achieve a variety of solid interface characteristics.