ANALYSIS OF THE DYNAMICS AND FREEZING OF WATER DROPLETS ON METAL SURFACES

Abstract

This article investigates the effects of substrate temperature, tilt angle, and droplet size on droplet impact dynamics and freezing using a Motionpro high-speed camera and a DSA-30 droplet surface analyzer. The temperature of the substrate was changed from the ambient temperature of 21°C to -13°C, and three droplet sizes (<i>D</i><sub>0</sub> = 2.57, 3.02, and 3.54 mm) were studied. The results show that some air gets trapped under the liquid film during the impact process due to insufficient escape time, resulting in the interior of the droplet being in an unstable state. Simultaneously, due to the low surface energy of the substrate, liquid droplets exhibit a rebound effect upon impact with the ambient temperature substrate, reaching their maximum height and forming a dumbbell-like shape. Furthermore, the rebound height decreases rapidly with the decrease in substrate temperature. A change in substrate temperature had no significant effect on the droplet spreading process, but decreasing substrate temperature increased the viscous forces, thereby suppressing the droplet retraction and oscillation processes, ultimately leading to longer droplet freezing times. Additionally, at low Weber numbers (<i>We </i>< 250), the droplet dimensionless parameters exhibited a similar trend with respect to dimensionless time or temperature.