Resurrection of a superhydrophobic cylinder impacting onto liquid bath

Abstract

An interesting resurrection phenomenon (including the initial complete submersion, subsequent resurfacing and final rebounding) of a superhydrophobic sphere impacting onto a liquid bath was observed in experiments and direct numerical simulations by Galeano-Rios et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 912, 2021, A17). We investigate the mechanisms of the liquid entry for a superhydrophobic cylinder in this paper. The superhydrophobic cylinder, commonly employed as supporting legs for insects and robots at the liquid surface, can exhibit liquid-entry mechanisms different from those observed with the sphere. The direct numerical simulation method is applied to the impact of a two-dimensional (2-D) superhydrophobic cylinder (modelled as a pseudo-solid) onto a liquid bath. We find that for the impacting cylinder the resurrection phenomenon can also exist, and the cylinder can either rebound (get detached from the liquid surface) or stay afloat after resurfacing. The cylinder impact behaviour is classified into four regimes, i.e. floating, bouncing, resurrecting (resurrecting-floating and resurrecting-bouncing) and sinking, dependent on the Weber number and the density ratio of the cylinder to the liquid. For the regimes of floating and bouncing, the force analysis indicates that the form drag dominates the motion of the cylinder in the very beginning of the impact, while subsequently the surface tension force also plays a role with the contact line pinning on the horizontal midline of the cylinder. For the critical states of the highlighted resurrecting regime, our numerical results show that the rising height for the completely submerged cylinder of different density ratios remains nearly unchanged. Accordingly, a relation between the maximum ascending velocity and the density ratio is derived to predict whether the completely submerged cylinder can resurface.