Wettability Characteristics of Microgroove Patterned SS304 Stainless Steel Surfaces

摘要

Surface wettability is an important property of functional materials. Wettability influences self-cleaning, drag reduction, corrosion inhibition, anti-icing functions of surfaces etc. This paper presents a study on the wettability of microgroove patterns on stainless steel SS304, a material that is popularly used in aeronautical and automobile sectors where high strength is required. By using a chemical etching technique, microgroove patterns were created on SS304 surfaces with varying ridge width to channel width ratio (RW/CW) ranging from 0.31 to 1.67. The geometry of the created microgrooves was measured using a 3D profilometer. The wetting behaviour of the microgroove surfaces was characterized by measuring the static water contact angle using the sessile drop method. Results showed that the microgroove patterns followed Casie-Baxter behaviour of wetting (i.e. CB model). They showed less wetting when compared to the SS304 flat surface. It was observed that the contact angle and contact diameter formed by water droplet varies depending upon the geometry, i.e., ridge width and channel width of the microgroove surfaces. The contact angle increases with the RW/CW ratio until up to a certain value, after which the contact angle decreases with further increase in the ratio. Amongst all the microgroove patterns, the pattern that has RW/CW ratio of 0.68 showed the highest water contact angle values.