Drag force on a sphere moving towards an anisotropic super-hydrophobic plane

Abstract

We analyze theoretically a high-speed drainage of liquid films squeezed between a hydrophilic sphere and a textured super-hydrophobic plane, that contains trapped gas bubbles. A super-hydrophobic wall is characterized by parameters $L$ (texture characteristic length), $b_1$ and $b_2$ (local slip lengths at solid and gas areas), and ${\varphi }_1$ and ${\varphi }_2$ (fractions of solid and gas areas). Hydrodynamic properties of the plane are fully expressed in terms of the effective slip-length tensor with eigenvalues that depend on texture parameters and $H$ (local separation). The effect of effective slip is predicted to decrease the force as compared with expected for two hydrophilic surfaces and described by the Taylor equation. The presence of additional length scales, $L$, $b_1$ and $b_2$, implies that a film drainage can be much richer than in case of a sphere moving towards a hydrophilic plane. For a large (compared to $L$) gap the reduction of the force is small, and for all textures the force is similar to expected when a sphere is moving towards a smooth hydrophilic plane that is shifted down from the super-hydrophobic wall. The value of this shift is equal to the average of the eigenvalues of the slip-length tensor. By analyzing striped super-hydrophobic surfaces, we then compute the correction to the Taylor equation for an arbitrary gap. We show that at thinner gap the force reduction becomes more pronounced, and that it depends strongly on the fraction of the gas area and local slip lengths. For small separations we derive an exact equation, which relates a correction for effective slip to texture parameters. Our analysis provides a framework for interpreting recent force measurements in the presence of super-hydrophobic surface.

9 pages, 5 figures, submitted to PRE; EPAPS file included

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Cited by in corpus (10)

• Tensorial slip of super-hydrophobic channels
• Effective slip boundary conditions for arbitrary one-dimensional surfaces
• Contact Angle Hysteresis on Superhydrophobic Stripes
• Anisotropic flow in striped superhydrophobic channels
• Effective slip-length tensor for a flow over weakly slipping stripes
• Flow in channels with superhydrophobic trapezoidal textures
• Effective hydrodynamic boundary conditions for microtextured surfaces
• Effective slippage on superhydrophobic trapezoidal grooves
• Lattice-Boltzmann simulations of the drag force on a sphere approaching a superhydrophobic striped plane
• Effect of a Microscopic Roughness on Biological Adhesion of a Spherical Capsule