Drop impact on a flexible fiber

Abstract

When droplets impact fibrous media, the liquid can be captured by the fibers or contact then break away. Previous studies have shown that the efficiency of drop capture by a rigid fiber depends on the impact velocity and defined a threshold velocity below which the drop is captured. However, it is necessary to consider the coupling of elastic and capillary effects to achieve a greater understanding of the capture process for soft substrates. Here, we study experimentally the dynamics of a single drop impacting on a thin flexible fiber. Our results demonstrate that the threshold capture velocity depends on the flexibility of fibers in a non-monotonic way. We conclude that tuning the mechanical properties of fibers can optimize the efficiency of droplet capture.

Soft Matter (2015)

References in corpus (6)

• Drop Splashing on a Dry Smooth Surface
• Splashing of liquids: interplay of surface roughness with surrounding gas
• How micropatterns and air pressure affect splashing on surfaces
• Wetting of crossed fibers: multiple steady states and symmetry breaking
• Wetting morphologies on an array of fibers of different radii
• Wetting morphologies on randomly oriented fibers

Cited by in corpus (1)

• On Secondary Atomization and blockage of surrogate cough droplets in single and multi-layer face masks