Contact Angle Effect on Friction in Hydrophobic Surfaces, ANSYS Fluent CFD Simulation Tutorial

Description

In this project Contact Angle Effect on Friction Factor in Hydrophobic Surfaces is studied in ANSYS Fluent software .

The Contact Angle is a quantitative measurement of the wetting of a solid by a liquid. Every solid, liquid, and vapor system form a unique contact angle.

Hydrophobic and Hydrophilic surfaces repel and attract water and make more and less than 90 degree, respectively.

The geometry of the present model is three-dimensional and we model it using Design Modeler software. We do the meshing of the present model by ANSYS Meshing software. The mesh type is structured. Also, the element number is 250,047.

For a closer look, droplets with 125, 150 and 175 degree contact angles are modeled and their shear stress with the wall in different diagrams are compared.

Methodology: Contact Angle Effect on Friction

To simulate the multiphase treatment of the solution, VOF model is chosen. Also, the viscous model is assumed to be Laminar and the solver is transient.

Conclusion

At the end of the solution process, animations and two-dimensional contours of the volume friction of the domain are presented.

At first, a water droplet standing at the height of 20mm is patched into the domain, and its treatment is investigated under different contact angles. The literature says that the shear stress and friction factor will decrease by increasing the contact angle between water and surface.

As can be seen in the plots, the maximum amount of models is decreasing while the contact angle increases.