Liquid drop spreading on solid surfaces at low impact speeds

Abstract

In this paper, a previously developed drop spreading model is applied to studying the spreading kinetics of water drops with low impact speeds on an anodized aluminium surface and a glass plate. A set of measured spreading data is used to verify the model predictions for low-speed impact spreading cases, in which the impact speed was adjusted by varying the drop release height. It is found that, for relatively lower impact speeds up to U=250 cm s −1, the spreading model can simulate well, the spreading of the water drops on the flat metal surface and the glass plate. At higher impact speeds, the simple spreading model overestimates the spreading rates. Some possible reasons for the overestimation are discussed.