Drop Impact onto a Metallic Porous Layer: Effect of Liquid Viscosity and Air Entrapment

The drop impact onto porous surfaces has important applications in many fields, such as painting, paper coating,drug delivery and cosmetic sprays. In most of these applications, the optimisation of the deposition process is carried out empirically, without a proper understanding of the physics and a theoretical modelling of the spreading and the imbibition phenomena. The purpose of this study is to analyse droplet impacts on metallic meshes to define a general modelling strategy of the impact regimen on particular 2D regular porous surfaces. The application of this structure is relevant in process like filtration but also in the medical field, considering for example reconstructive surgery. By analysing the impact of droplets of water, acetone and a mixture of glycerol and water, having a diameter and an impact velocity in a range of 1.5-3mm and 2-4m/s, respectively, on meshes with a pore size ranging between 25 and 400 µm, a regime map was built considering 6 different impact outcomes. The outcomes were characterised by a deposition of the droplet on the substrate, or a partial imbibition, or a total imbibition. By increasing the impact velocity, a splash region was defined, which is still characterised by a final deposition, a partial imbibition and a total imbibition. It is found that the most influencing parameters are closely linked to the liquid properties and the impact velocity, more specifically liquid surface tension plays a major role in defining the impact outcome. In the case of Acetone, the lower surface tension brings to an almost instantaneous total imbibition whereas the experiments conducted using water and glycerol solution, showed a major distribution of the deposition regimes with respect to the other outcomes, due to the effect of a higher viscosity. It was found that the geometrical characteristics of the mesh such as pore size and wire diameter, play an important role as well in defining the total imbibition outcome. Finally, the defined transition maps, shows that for a certain combination of physical properties and initial condition,the outcome of the droplet impact is predictable.