Drops with non-circular footprints

Abstract

In this paper we study the morphology of drops formed on partially wetting substrates, whose footprint is not circular. These drops are consequence of the breakup processes occurring in thin films when anisotropic contact line motions take place. The anisotropy is basically due to the hysteresis of the contact angle since there is a wetting process in some parts of the contact line, while a dewetting occurs in other parts. Here, we obtain a characteristic drop shape from the rupture of a long liquid filament sitting on a solid substrate. We analyze its shape and contact angles by means of goniometric and refractive techniques. We also find a non-trivial steady state solution for the drop shape within the long wave approximation (lubrication theory), and we compare most of its features with experimental data. This solution is presented both in Cartesian and polar coordinates, whose constants must be determined by a certain group of measured parameters. Besides, we obtain the dynamics of the drop generation from numerical simulations of the full Navier–Stokes equation, where we emulate the hysteretic effects with an appropriate spatial distribution of the static contact angle over the substrate.