STABILITY AND SURFACE FREE ENERGY ANALYSIS OF A LIQUID DROP ON A HORIZONTAL CYLINDRICAL WIRE USING FEM SIMULATION

Abstract

The stable conformation of a liquid-water drop on a horizontal cylindrical wire is studied. The stable conformation is established with various wire diameters. For each conformation of the drop the surface free energy is calculated using FEM simulation. The free energy for different drop shapes are compared with consideration to different volumes and contact angles. The effect of gravity on droplet shape with respect to wire diameter and droplet volume is observed. The droplet configurations under the influence of gravity and in the absence of gravity are observed and the shapes are described through coordinates of liquid-air and liquid-solid interfaces. The compensation of one interfacial energy with that of another is found. The wetting behaviour of liquid–drop on a wire is found to be significantly different from that on a plane surface under the influence of wire geometry. The numerical model was established taking liquid density at 1000kg/m3 and gravitational acceleration at 9.8 m/s 2. The numerical study is important in understanding the spreading of liquid droplets over cylindrical surfaces .The spreading of liquid over surfaces has got wide application in food industry, micro fluidics and more and in understanding the coating behaviour, liquid-solid and liquid-vapour interactions, material properties, etc.