INTERACTIONS BETWEEN HIGH-VISCOSITY DROPLETS DEPOSITED ON A SURFACE: EXPERIMENTS AND SIMULATIONS

摘要

A combined numerical and experimental investigation of coalescence of droplets of highly viscous liquids dropped on a surface has been carried out. Droplets of 87 wt% glycerin-in-water solutions with viscosity 110 centistokes were deposited sequentially in straight lines onto a flat, solid steel plate and droplet impact photographed. Impacting droplets spread on the surface until liquid surface tension and viscosity overcame inertial forces and the droplets recoiled, eventually reaching equilibrium. Droplet center-to-center distance was varied and droplet line length was measured from photographs. As droplet spacing was increased there was less interaction between the droplets. A three dimensional parallel code has been developed to simulate fluid flow and free surface interaction by solving the continuity, momentum and volume-of-fiuid (VOF) equations. The two-step projection method was employed to solve the governing equations for the whole domain including both liquid and air phases. The continuum-surface-force (CSF) scheme was applied to model surface tension and the piecewise-linear-interface-construction (PLIC) technique used to reconstruct the free surface. Computer generated images of impacting droplets modeled droplet shape evolution correctly and compared well with photographs taken during experiments. Accurate predictions were obtained for droplet line length during spreading and at equilibrium.