Design of Arrayed Micro-Structures to get Super-Hydrophobic Surface for Single Droplet and Bulk Flow Conditions

A. Mall[1], P. R. Jelia[1], A. Agrawal[1], R. K. Singh[1], and S. S. Joshi[1]

[1] Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Maharashtra, India
Published in 2009

Surfaces with water contact angle greater than 150º are super-hydrophobic in nature and possess extraordinary water repelling properties. Various researches on wettability of textured surfaces in recent years have shown that texturing surfaces with micron-sized and nanosized patterns improves their hydrophobicity to a great extent. This report aims at optimizing the dimensions of square-pillared arrayed textures to achieve maximum contact angle, and the effect on rounding the edges, and changing droplet size; together with simulation of bulk water flow through micro-channels having textured walls. Comparison has been made between smooth and textured surfaces in terms of pressure drop reduction and slip-length, in order to investigate the effects of textures on hydrophobicity. Pressure drop reductions up to 19%, obtained from simulations suggest that significant energy saving can be done in micro-fluidics using textures

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