Influence of Microstructure Topography on the Oblique Impact Dynamics of Drops on Superhydrophobic Surfaces

This report investigates the influence of microstructure topography on the restitution coefficient, maximum spreading diameter, and contact time of oblique drop impacts on superhydrophobic surfaces. The five surfaces tested allow for comparison of open- versus closed-cell structures, feature size and spacing, and hierarchical versus nanoscale-only surface structures. By decoupling the restitution coefficient into a normal (εn) and tangential component (εt), it is demonstrated that both εn and εt are largely independent of the microstructure topography. Instead, the restitution coefficient is governed almost exclusively by the normal Weber number. Next, a new model is presented that relates the maximum spreading diameter to an adhesion coefficient that characterizes the overall adhesive properties of the superhydrophobic microstructure during drop rebounding. Through this analysis, we discovered that surface geometries with greater microstructure roughness (i.e., overall surface area) promote a higher maximum spreading diameter than flatter geometries. Furthermore, the contact time of drop impacts on flat surfaces is positively correlated with the impact velocity due to penetration of the liquid into the porous nanostructure. However, this trend reverses for oblique impacts due to the presence of stretched rebounding behavior. Finally, substrates patterned with sparse pillar microstructures can exhibit pancake bouncing behavior, resulting in extremely low contact times. This unique bouncing mechanism also significantly influences the restitution coefficient and spreading diameter of oblique impacts.