Microfluidics and Nanofluidics (2023) 27:69

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-023-02680-1

RESEARCH

Experimental study on the dynamics of droplet impacting on solid

surface
Jiangfeng Li1 · Chen Zhao1 · Chengyao Wang1

Received: 6 June 2023 / Accepted: 26 August 2023 / Published online: 12 September 2023
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2023

Abstract
An experimental visualization is undertaken to investigate the impact dynamic behaviors of water, absolute ethanol, and low
surface energy droplets with different viscosities impacting on hydrophobic surfaces. Droplets’ impacting behaviors, includ-
ing spreading, rebounding, and oscillation retraction, are observed and quantitatively characterized by transient spreading
factor and maximum spreading diameter. Effects of droplet impact velocity, surface wettability, and droplet viscosity on the
impact dynamics are explored and analyzed. As the droplet impact velocity increases, the droplet kinetic energy increases,
resulting in an increase in the spreading factor and spreading velocity simultaneously. Hydrophobic surfaces are not easy to
be wetted by water droplets due to their low surface energy, leading to the partial rebound of water droplets when impacting
on the hydrophobic surfaces. However, this phenomenon does not occur when low surface energy droplets, such as absolute
ethanol and simethicone, impact on hydrophobic surfaces at the same velocity. The increasing droplet viscosity enhances
the viscous dissipation, slowing down the impact process and inhibiting the droplet spreading, oscillation, and retraction
behaviors. Based on the energy conservation method, a universal model for the maximum spreading factor of low surface
energy droplets with different viscosities impacting on hydrophobic surface was established. According to the experimental
results, a new spreading time model tm = 2D0/U0 was proposed to enhance applicability of the model for low surface energy
droplets with high viscosity, reducing the calculation error to less than 10%.

Keywords Droplet impact · Hydrophobic surface · Maximum spreading · Low surface energy droplet · Energy model

1 Introduction (Palocios et al. 2013; Chen et al. 2013, 2015; Liu et al. 2019;
Zhou et al. 2019), structure of solid surface (Luo et al. 2021;
Dynamics of droplet impacting on solid surface is of great Wang et al. 2021a, b; Chen et al. 2017), ambient tempera-
significance in various scientific and technological fields, ture and pressure (Hao et al. 2019), and filed forces includ-
including 3D-printing (Wang et al. 2016), spray cooling ing electric field (Emdadi et al. 2020) and magnetic field
(Hsieh et al. 2016), combustion (Li et al. 2020), droplet (Shyam et al. 2023). The process of droplet impacting on
impact erosion (Ahmad et al. 2020), coating (Xu et al. 2019), solid surface is a multiphase and transient problem and the
deposition of molten metal droplet (Jung et al. 2013), and interactive multi-factor influence is more complex. There-
so on. When droplet impacting on solid surface, character- fore, in-depth understanding of dynamic characteristics of
istic behaviors containing spreading, retraction, deposition, droplet impacting on solid surface is essential in practical
splashing, and partial rebound and rebound (Rioboo et al. industrial processes.
2001; Josserand et al. 2016; Zhang et al. 2019; Wang et al. In recent years, the maximum spreading factor of droplet
2021a, b) are susceptible to physical properties of droplets on a solid surface has been widely studied as an important
parameter in the process of droplet impacting on a solid
surface. For droplets√ with a droplet size smaller than the
Jiangfeng Li and Chen Zhao have equally contributed to this work. ( )
capillary length 𝜆c = 𝜎
𝜌g
, the spreading process is often
* Chengyao Wang
wangchengyao@shiep.edu.cn dominated by three forces, namely inertial force, capillary
force, and viscous force. Therefore, the impact dynamics of
1
College of Energy and Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai droplets can be represented by two dimensionless numbers,
University of Electric Power, Shanghai 200090, China

13
Vol.:(0123456789)
69 Page 2 of 11 Microfluidics and Nanofluidics (2023) 27:69

We and Re, representing the ratio of inertial force to surface sufficiently high, which is determined by wettability of the
tension and the ratio of inertial force to viscous force, fiber and diameter ratio of the fiber to the droplet (Kim et al.
respectively. In recent years, different studies have used dif- 2016). At present, the mechanism of partial rebound derived
ferent methods to investigate the maximum spreading factor from droplet impacting on hydrophobic surfaces still needs
of liquid droplets. At present, the main research methods to exploring.
estimate the maximum spreading diameter are energy con- In this work, we have systematically studied the dynamics
servation, momentum conservation (Bartolo et al. 2005; of droplets impacting on hydrophobic surface. A visuali-
Clanet et al. 2004; Tsai et al. 2011), and scaling law analysis zation experiment is conducted to elucidate the effects of
(Scheller et al. 1995; Roisman et al. 2009). The momentum impact velocity, surface wettability, and droplet viscosity
conservation method obtains expression for the maximum on the spreading factor of droplets. We observed a phenom-
spreading diameter by solving the Navier–Stokes equation. enon of daughter droplets separating from the liquid col-
The scaling law analysis is a more empirical research umn formed by recoil during the retraction process of water
method, with which more effective universal prediction rela- droplets impacting the hydrophobic surface, and we have
tionships can be obtained. The energy conservation method analyzed in detail the mechanism behind this phenomenon.
is based on the principle of equal energy at the initial state We also summarized the behavior of low surface energy
and the time when the droplet reaches the maximum spread- droplets impacting on hydrophobic surfaces and explored the
ing diameter, leading to an accurate prediction formula for effect of viscosity change on the impact behavior of drop-
the maximum spreading diameter. The current energy mod- lets with lower surface tension by changing the viscosity of
els mainly make predictions more accurate through the fol- simethicone droplets. In particular, based on energy conser-
lowing aspects: 1. Predicting the shape of droplets when they vation, a predicting model is set forth for maximum spread-
reach their maximum spreading diameter, such as cylindrical ing diameter of low surface energy droplets with different
disk (Chandra et al. 1991; Pasandideh et al. 1996; Mao et al. viscosities. There is a small percentage error between the
1997), spherical cap (Lee et al. 2016; Li et al. 2010), ring- predicted results of the model and our experimental results.
like shape (Wang et al. 2019), and so on. 2. Defining the
relevant parameters of viscous dissipation term in the pro-
cess of droplet impacting on the surface. The parameters 2 Materials and methods
consist of boundary layer thickness, characteristic length,
characteristic velocity, maximum spreading time, etc. (Gao 2.1 Liquids and surfaces
et al. 2014; Wildeman et al. 2016; Huang et al. 2018; Du
et al. 2021b, a). In addition to the methods mentioned above, We conducted droplet impact experiments with deionized
numerical simulation has also been used to predict the maxi- water, absolute ethanol, and simethicone with three different
mum spreading factor of droplets (Pournaderi et al. 2019; viscosities at room temperature, 25 ℃. The physical prop-
Du et al. 2021a, b; Debnath et al. 2023). erties of different droplets are shown in Table 1. Smooth
For spreading time, existing energy models often estimate silicon wafer and glass slide were cleaned in an ultrasonic
it by introducing parameters, such as droplet impact velocity bath with ethanol for 10 min, rinsed in water, and dried with
and initial droplet diameter. Due to properties of droplet and purified nitrogen. 1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluorodecyl-thiethox-
solid surfaces, estimations are often not accurate enough. ysilane was used to silanize the silicon wafer to obtain a
Another method for predicting droplet spreading time is to hydrophobic surface. The static contact angels 𝜃 of deionized
use empirical equations based on experiments. For exam- water droplets on hydrophobic surface (silicon wafer) and
ple, Wang et al. (2015) collapsed spreading time of all low
visibility droplets with different surface tensions into one
master curve; Lin et al. (2018) presented an empirical cor-
relation of the dimensionless time that fits their empirical
data over wide ranges of We numbers and contact angles. Table 1  Density (𝜌), viscosity (𝜇), and surface tension (𝜎 ) of deion-
Combining the empirical formula of spreading time and the ized water, absolute ethanol, and simethicone with three different vis-
cosities at 25 ℃
energy conservation model often yields more accurate pre-
diction results. Droplet type ρ (kg/m3) μ (mPa s) σ (mN/m)
For the phenomenon of liquid droplets impacting on
Deionized water 998 0.89 72.0
solid surface, partial rebound is not common. Partial
Absolute ethanol 785 1.10 22.2
rebound refers to the rapid recoil of liquid droplets causing
Simethicone type1 945 10 20.5
the retracting droplets to break into two parts. For exam-
Simethicone type2 948 20 20.6
ple, impacting on a fiber, the impinging droplet will split
Simethicone type3 958 50 20.8
into two parts under inertial force when impact velocity is

13
Microfluidics and Nanofluidics (2023) 27:69 Page 3 of 11 69

hydrophilic surface (glass slide) are 106 ± 2.3° and 35 ± 2.1°, impact velocity v is obtained by v = △s /△t, where △s and
respectively. △t are vertical displacement and time interval between last
two adjacent frames just before droplet contacting the sur-
2.2 Droplet impact experiment and data analysis face. The Weber number, defined as We = 𝜌v2 D0 ∕𝜎 , which
represents the ratio of inertia force to capillary force, var-
A visualized experimental apparatus for one droplet impact- ies from 12 to 165 and the Reynolds number, defined as
ing on a horizontal surface is presented in Fig. 1a. A CCD Re = 𝜌vD0 ∕𝜇, which represents the ratio of inertia force to
camera (I-SPEED 220) equipped with an optical microscope viscous force, varies from 18 to 3660. Here, ρ is density of
(Navitar 12X) was installed in profile to observe the droplet droplet, σ is interface tension, and μ is dynamic viscosity.
impact dynamic behaviors on a hydrophilic and hydrophobic Another important dimensionless parameter, spreading
horizontal surface. The deviation between camera angle and factor β, is defined as β = Dt/D0, where Dt is the spreading
horizontal direction was 5°. The light sources consisted of diameter of droplet after impact, see Fig. 1c. The dimension-
a point light of 10 watts at the side and an LED light of 30 less time tv/D0 is denoted by t* and the time for the droplet
watts under the glass sheet. just contacting the surface is set as t* = 0.
The syringe with needle diameter at 0.06 mm, driven
by a syringe pump (LSP01-1A), was adopted to prepare
droplets. The equivalent droplet diameter is calculated 3 Results and discussion
by D0 = (Dh2Dv)1/3 to modify the imperfect sphere due to
the gravitational effect, where Dh is the horizontal diam- 3.1 Impact phenomena
eter and Dv is the vertical diameter, as shown in Fig. 1b.
The initial diameters D0 of droplets (prepared by deion- Figure 2 presents the dynamic behaviors of a water droplet
ized water, ethanol, and simethicone) before impacting impacting on hydrophobic surface (𝜃=106°) at v = 0.95 m/s.
on the surface are 2.04 ± 0.02 mm, 1.55 ± 0.02 mm, and The dynamic behaviors can be segmented into two stages,
1.40 ± 0.01 mm, respectively. Prepared droplets fall down spreading stage and retraction stage. At t* = 0, the water
to impact the surface under gravity. Velocities of different droplet contacts the surface at an impact point, the rapid
impacts are controlled by the height of the syringe needle pressure increase at the impact point will cause droplets to
above the impacted surface on the object stage. The droplet deform rapidly and spread radially from the impact point.

Fig. 1  a System diagram of

experimental device and b
horizontal and vertical diameter
of droplets and c spreading
diameter of droplets

13
69 Page 4 of 11 Microfluidics and Nanofluidics (2023) 27:69

Fig. 2  Snapshots of a water droplet impacting on the hydrophobic surface with 𝜃=106° (v = 0.95 m/s, We = 25.52, and Re = 2173.17)

At the beginning of spreading stage, a raised rim is formed force and surface tension, on the upward vertical direction;
at the periphery at t* = 0.42 due to surface tension, limiting the resultant force is large enough to make the droplet break
spread and decelerating radial flow close to the periphery. away from the liquid column, forming a rebound behavior.
The capillary wave propagating simultaneously along the Under the influence of gravity, the liquid column returns to
edge of the droplet toward the center of the droplet changes the surface, and further droplet spread and recoil sequences
the droplet into a pyramid shape. As the droplet continues to occur with descending amplitude and frequency until the
spread out, the kinetic energy of liquid at the edge is gradu- droplet dissipates excess energy and reaches equilibrium.
ally exhausted, weakening the spreading of edge layer to a
halt. However, the central liquid can still spread out by the 3.2 Effect of substrate surface
virtue of the kinetic energy, resulting in a concave shape
of the upper half spherical droplet from a convex shape. A The spreading ability of droplet impacting on a surface is
rimmed-disk shape (surrounding rim + central lamella/film) defined as surface wettability, which is characterized by an
is finally formed when the droplet reaches maximum spread important parameter named static contact angle θ. The static
at t* = 1.35. At this point, the kinetic energy of the droplet contact angle is influenced by the dual effects of droplet
transforms into surface energy of the droplet apart from that surface energy and substrate surface energy. In comparison,
conquering the viscous dissipation. Subsequently, the drop- the free energy at the hydrophobic surface is less than that at
let goes into retraction stage. According to the minimum the hydrophilic surface. Therefore, the hydrophobic surface
energy principle, the liquid at the edge moves toward the is harder to be wetted. To analyze the effect of substrate
center under surface energy. The spreading diameter begins surface on droplet impact behaviors, three cases are adopted,
to decrease; the central dented region is refilled to be con- including water droplet impacting on hydrophilic surface,
vex, and then, a liquid column comes out. As the height of water droplet impacting on hydrophobic surface, and ethanol
the liquid column increases, the upper half part of column droplet impacting on hydrophobic surface. The static con-
reforms to be spherical at t* = 6.66. The droplet continuously tact angles of water droplet on hydrophilic and hydrophobic
rises until a daughter droplet breaks up from the column at surface are 106 ± 2.3° and 58 ± 2.1°, respectively. The static
t* = 8.46 and the rest column retracts downward. After the contact angle of ethanol droplet on hydrophobic surface
new droplet breaks away, the rest liquid reforms to be a hem- is 47 ± 3°. This is because alcohol droplets have a lower
isphere, which means the end of the retraction stage. Imme- surface tension, leading to the hydrophobic surface in this
diately following the breakup point, the droplet undergoes article is lyophilic to alcohol droplet.
rebound stage. Rebound behavior of the daughter droplet Figure 3 presents the evolution of droplet outline dur-
is the result of combined effect of kinetic energy and sur- ing the impact process in three cases. Differing from the
face energy. As the droplet undergoes retraction oscillation, rebounding behavior of water droplet on hydrophobic
the new formed droplet is lifted by resultant force of inertia surface in Fig. 3a, only spreading behavior and retraction

13
Microfluidics and Nanofluidics (2023) 27:69 Page 5 of 11 69

(ⅴ) water, hydrophobic surface

2.5 water, hydrophilic surface
ethanol, hydrophobic surface
(ⅳ)
2.0

1.5 (ⅲ)

β
(ⅵ)

1.0
(ⅱ)

0.5
(ⅰ)

0.0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
t*

Fig. 4  The effect of substrate surface on spreading factor of water

droplets (v = 0.95 m/s, We = 25.52, and Re = 2173.17) and ethanol
droplet (v = 0.95 m/s, We = 49.91, and Re = 1050.83)

inertial force in the early stage of the impacting process,

while ethanol droplet with low surface is dominated by
inertial forces in the early stage of the impacting process.
For water droplets impacting surfaces with different wet-
tability, the maximum spreading factors βmax are quite close,
2.03 for hydrophobic surface and 2.12 for hydrophilic sur-
face. For water droplet behaviors on hydrophilic surface,
a slight oscillation appears in the early retraction stage,
and then, a hump shape droplet is eventually formed with
β of 1.93 at the steady state with a minor retraction and no
rebounding phenomenon. The ratio of spreading factor at
steady state to maximum spreading factor of water droplet
on hydrophilic surface is 0.91. It also states that the droplet
undergoes a small retraction on hydrophilic surface. Spread-
ing factors of water droplet with the same initial impact
velocity on these two surfaces are compared in Fig. 4, we
found that surface wettability has a significant influence on
retraction stage, and droplet retraction degree is positively
Fig. 3  Outline of the droplet impact process: a water droplet impact associated with static contact angle of droplet on the sur-
on hydrophobic surface (v = 0.95 m/s, We = 25.52, Re = 2173.17,
and θ = 106°), b water droplet impact on hydrophilic surface face. However, static contact angle has a weak influence
(v = 0.95 m/s, We = 25.52, Re = 2173.17, and θ = 35°), and c ethanol on spreading stage and dynamic characteristics of spread-
droplet impact on hydrophobic surface (v = 0.95 m/s, We = 49.91, ing behaviors are similar with quite close βmax. Other than
Re = 1050.83, and θ = 47°) these two cases, the spreading behavior of ethanol droplet on
hydrophobic surface is relatively intense with βmax of 2.45.
Subsequently, the ethanol droplet experiences the retraction
behavior arise in other two cases, as depicted in Fig. 3b without any oscillation or any rebounding behaviors until
and c. It is worth mentioning that through the comparison the droplet reaches the steady state with β of 1.66. The ratio
of Fig. 3b and c, we can find that there is no fluctuation on of steady spreading factor to the maximum is 0.68, smaller
the three-phase contact line (TPCL) caused by the capil- than 0.91, meaning that retraction degree of ethanol droplet
lary wave in the spreading stage of ethanol droplets. This is larger than that of water droplet on hydrophilic surface.
is because the water droplet at low velocity will undergo With the three cases, it is not difficult to find that increase
deformation under the synergism of surface tension and in static contact angle enhances droplet retraction behavior

13
69 Page 6 of 11 Microfluidics and Nanofluidics (2023) 27:69

and rebounding phenomenon could arise when the droplet instability. As the droplet velocity increases, the position
retraction intensifies to a certain extent. Since the surface of the droplet fracture point continuously shifts upwards.
tension of ethanol droplet is smaller than that of water drop- Particularly, as the impact velocity reaches 1.6 m/s, there
let, spreading ability of ethanol droplet is stronger, induc- arises a double-daughter-droplet rebound phenomenon. This
ing that the maximum spreading factor of ethanol droplet is is because velocity large enough velocity can still maintain a
larger than that of water droplet. sufficiently high liquid column after the first daughter drop-
let breaks away from the liquid column, which will once
3.3 Effect of impact velocity again form daughter droplet due to Rayleigh–Plateau insta-
bility, as shown in Fig. 5.
Impact velocity of the droplet can directly influence the
droplet dynamic behaviors, as shown in Fig. 5. The maxi- 3.4 Effect of viscosity
mum spreading factor of droplet is positively related with the
impact velocity. According to the calculation of the Weber Droplet viscosity is an important variable affecting the
number, We = ρv2D0/σ, increase in impact velocity v means a impact process. Current research often uses glycerol to
larger We, representing an enhanced inertia force. That force endow droplets with different viscosities (Lin et al. 2018).
brings out an increased impact kinetic energy, resulting in Although this method can make droplets with a wide range
a larger maximum spreading diameter. A larger maximum of viscosities, their surface tension is similar to that of
spreading diameter represents that the droplet has greater water droplets. In this experiment, we studied the impact
surface energy, which helps the recoil and rebound behavior. characteristics of low surface tension droplets with dif-
However, due to the presence of wall shear stress, a larger ferent viscosities. Figure 6 shows spreading factor, β,
liquid–solid contact area increases the viscosity dissipation of droplets with viscosities of 10 mPa s, 20 mPa s, and
during droplet retraction process, thereby suppressing the 50 mPa s impact on the hydrophobic surfaces at a velocity
droplet recoil and rebound. When the liquid droplet impacts of 1.6 m/s. Spreading factors of droplets with each vis-
on the hydrophobic surface at a velocity of 0.65 m/s, partial cosity increase rapidly and the growth rate is almost the
rebound will not occur, and the droplet completely remains same in the early stage of spreading. This is because when
on the hydrophobic surface. When the droplet impact veloc- a droplet impacts on solid surface, inertial force is much
ity is greater than 0.95 m/s, as shown in Fig. 5, the recoil of larger than viscous force. Before reaching the maximum
droplets and the reduction of surface energy will pull the liq- spreading diameter, the spreading rate of droplets gradu-
uid column higher, resulting in two new droplets, daughter ally decreases due to the dominance of viscous forces.
droplet and the residual droplet due to the Rayleigh–Plateau As shown in Fig. 6, under the same impact velocity, the
larger the droplet viscosity, the smaller the maximum

3.0 v=0.95m/s
v=1.16m/s
v=1.29m/s 2.5 (ⅰ)
2.5 v=1.48m/s
v=1.60m/s (ⅱ)
2.0 (ⅰ) (ⅱ) (ⅲ) (ⅳ) (ⅴ)
2.0 (ⅲ)
β

1.5
β

1.0
1.5
μ = 10mPa.s
0.5 μ = 20mPa.s
μ = 50mPa.s
0.0
0.0 2.5 5.0 7.5 10.0 12.5 15.0 17.5 20.0 1.0
t* 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
t*
Fig. 5  Time variations of the spreading factor 𝛽 for different imping-
ing water droplets on hydrophobic surface (θ = 106°) at i v = 0.95 m/s, Fig. 6  Time variations of the spreading factor 𝛽 for different imping-
We = 25.52, Re = 2173.17, ii v = 1.16 m/s, We = 38.05, Re = 2653.56, ing simethicone droplets on hydrophobic surface (θ = 106°) at
iii v = 1.29 m/s, We = 47.06, Re = 2950.94, iv v = 1.48 m/s, v = 1.6 m/s (i µ = 10 mPa s, We = 165.21, Re = 211.68, ii µ = 20 mPa
We = 61.94, Re = 3385.58, and v v = 1.6 m/s, We = 72.39, Re = 3660.08 s, We = 164.93, Re = 106.18, and iii µ = 50 mPa s, We = 165.07,
Re = 42.92)

13
Microfluidics and Nanofluidics (2023) 27:69 Page 7 of 11 69

spreading diameter, since more kinetic energy is consumed droplets with higher viscosity have a smaller retraction
to overcome the viscous dissipation as the droplet viscos- amplitude. From an energy perspective, droplets with
ity increases. Only when the contact angle reduces to a higher viscosity have smaller excess surface energy for
certain threshold can TPCL retract (Wang et al. 2020), and retraction due to their smaller maximum spreading diam-
all the droplets with different viscosity undergo a retrac- eter. At the end of the impact process, the droplets in all
tion stage due to the low surface tension making droplets three cases have approximately the same spreading factor.
easier to reduce the contact angle to the threshold during As the velocity of simethicone droplet (μ = 10 mPa∙s)
the spreading process. In addition, it can be observed that impacting the hydrophobic surface (θ = 106°) increases from

Fig. 7  Three-phase contact

line protrusion of simethi-
cone droplets: a μ = 10 mPa
s, v = 1.71 m/s, We = 188.71,
and Re = 226.23, b μ = 10 mPa
s, v = 1.85 m/s, We = 220.88,
and Re = 244.76, c μ = 10 mPa
s, v = 1.93 m/s, We = 240.39,
Re = 255.34, and d μ = 20 mPa
s, v = 1.93 m/s, We = 239.98,
and Re = 128.07

13
69 Page 8 of 11 Microfluidics and Nanofluidics (2023) 27:69

1.6 m/s to 1.71 m/s, there appears a protrusion phenom- After impact, with the increase of viscous dissipation and
enon on the three-phase contact line, as shown in Fig. 7a. area of the liquid–solid and liquid–gas interfaces, the kinetic
As impact velocity increases to 1.85 m/s and 1.93 m/s in energy of the droplet is consumed. When the droplet reaches
Fig. 7b and Fig. 7c, the protrusion on the three-phase contact its maximum spreading, the kinetic energy of the droplet is
line is obviously enhanced. As simethicone droplet viscosity assumed to be 0. At this point, the shape of the droplet can
becomes μ = 20 mPa∙s, the breakeven velocity for appear- be simplified to a quasistatic cylinder with a base diameter
ing protrusion increases to 1.93 m/s, as shown in Fig. 7d. Dm and height Hm , as shown in Fig. 8. The total surface
However, when simethicone droplet viscosity is 50 mPa∙s, energy of the system is
protrusion phenomenon is not observed anymore with drop- [ ]
let velocity in the range from 1.71 m/s to 2.12 m/s in this 𝜋D2m 𝜋D2m (
(3)
)
Es1 = + Dm Hm 𝜎 + 𝜎SL − 𝜎SV ,
experiment. 4 4
The reason for the above phenomenon is upward lift
caused by surrounding air on the edge of the lamella; where 𝜎SL is the solid–liquid surface tension, 𝜎SV is the
2D3
increase in spreading velocity of the lamella will result in solid–vapor surface tension, and Hm = 3D20 . By substituting
higher upward lift. Consequently, protrusions on the three- m
Eq. (4) (Young et al. 1855) into Eqs. (3 and 5) can be
phase contact line of the droplet appears. As droplet viscos-
obtained
ity increases, viscous dissipation generated in the lamella
increases, requiring a higher upward lift so that a higher 𝜎 cos 𝜃 = 𝜎SL − 𝜎SV (4)
velocity.
[ 3
]
𝜋D2m 2 D0
Es1 = (1 − cos 𝜃) + 𝜋 𝜎. (5)
3.5 Energy analysis of the impact process 4 3 Dm

Energy is conserved in a system composed of droplets, solid

surfaces, and the surrounding atmosphere. The system According to the energy conservation principle, it can be
energy before droplet impact is composed of initial kinetic concluded that
energy, K0 , and initial surface energy, Es0 of the droplet. As K0 + Es0 = Es1 + W1 . (6)
the initial diameter
√( ) of droplet, D0 smaller than capillary
W1 is the viscous dissipation of the droplet during the
length, 𝜆c = 𝜎
, the gravity potential energy of droplet
𝜌g above process, and can be evaluated by
during the process can be neglected. The energy level of the tm
solid surface is set as zero as the reference for the system
( )
𝜈c
∫ ∫
W1 = ΦdVdt ≈ ΦVtm ≈ 𝜇 Vtm , (7)
(
1 2 1 3
)( ) Lc
K0 = 𝜌v 𝜋D0 (1) 0 V
2 6
where tm is maximum spreading time, and 𝜈c and Lc are
the characteristic length and the characteristic velocity,
Es0 = 𝜋D20 𝜎. (2) 𝜋D2 L
respectively. V = 4m c is the effective volume of viscous

Fig. 8  Schematic diagrams of

an impacting droplet: a prior to
impact and b at the maximum
spreading

13
Microfluidics and Nanofluidics (2023) 27:69 Page 9 of 11 69

dissipation. The model is based on the work of Chandra and

Avedisian (1991).
Some previous studies took the thickness of the viscous
boundary layer 𝛿 = √ 0 as the characteristic length Lc(Pasan-
2D
Re
dideh et al. 1996), but for droplet with high viscosity, the
thickness of the viscous boundary layer is greater than Hm .
Yonemoto et al. (2017) proposed taking the harmonic aver-
age of the possible droplet shapes at the end of the spreading
process, thus ending up with Lc = Hm ∕3. They also redefined
the characteristic velocity as 𝜈c = 3𝜈∕8, which is different
from the previous study of taking 𝜈 as the characteristic
velocity. To estimate the maximum spreading diameter of
low surface energy droplets with higher viscosity than water
in this article, Yonemoto’s model is used.
By substituting the value of Lc , 𝜈c , and V into Eq. (7),
we have

0.158𝜋𝜌v3 D4m Fig. 9  Comparison of the experimental with the theoretical ones
W1 = tm . (8) computed by the present model [Eq. (10)]
ReD20

The spreading time tm is defined as the time required for

a droplet to reach its maximum spread. In recent years,
many studies have defined the spreading time, Chandra
et al. (1991) affirmed that the height at which the droplet
reaches its maximum spreading state is 0, so the time
required for the droplet to drop D0 at impact velocity is the
maximum spreading time tm = 𝜈0 . Pasandideh-Fard et al.
D

(1996) estimated tm with an additional coefficient of 8/3 to

satisfy the conservation of mass assuming the average
droplet height to be D0 ∕2 . Huang et al. (2018) proposed
the spreading time based on droplet surface tension and
indicated tm = 2𝜈m to better fit their experimental data.
D

Recently, Lin et al. (2018) found that the spreading time

of impinging droplets is in the same order of the charac-
teristic advective time and capillary-inertial time. On
account of the spreading time affected by liquid viscosity
and surface wettability, a universal scaling law Fig. 10  Comparison of the experimental and theoretical outcomes
tm = 1.240𝜏i We−0.43 was√ obtained using the modified cap- computed by the present model and previously proposed models
illary-inertial time 𝜏i = 𝜌R3m ∕𝜎 . Although there are vari-
ous definitions of spreading time, there is no research on We 5
3
defining the spreading time of low surface energy droplets (We + 12)𝛽max − 8 − 3(1 − cos 𝜃)𝛽max = 3.797 𝛽 .
Re max
impacting solid surfaces. Based on the experimental data (10)
in this paper, we have defined the maximum spreading We examine the applicability of the present model
time of low surface energy droplets [Eq. (10)] predicting the maximum spreading diameter of
2D0 low surface energy droplets with different viscosities by
tm = . (9) comparing the experimental results. Viscosities of droplets
v0
in the experiment are 10 mPa s, 20 mPa s, and 50 mPa
By substituting Eqs. (1, 2, 5 and 8) into Eq. (6), the final s. The We and Re of these droplets range from 28.92 to
form of the present model of the maximum spreading fac- 165.21 and 17.97 to 211.68, respectively. As shown in
tor 𝛽max can be derived as follows: Fig. 9, most predicted results have an error of less than
10% compared to the experimental data. At the same
time, we compared the accuracy of this model with the

13
69 Page 10 of 11 Microfluidics and Nanofluidics (2023) 27:69

other models in the literature to demonstrate its validity. 3. A model is developed using energy conservation meth-
As shown in Fig. 10, it can be observed that the model ods to predict the maximum spreading factor of low
proposed by Pasandideh et al. (1996) underestimated the surface energy droplets with different viscosities on
maximum spreading factor of droplets when the droplet hydrophobic surfaces. The viscous dissipation term in
viscosity is 20 mPa s or 50 mPa s, while the model pro- the energy conservation equation is modified by rede-
posed by Chandra et al. (1991) slightly overestimates the fining the droplet spreading time as 2 D0 / U0 , and the
maximum spreading factor. For low surface tension drop- results are satisfactory. Compared with other models in
lets, the inaccurate characteristic time for droplet spread- the previous literature, the model has higher accuracy in
ing will lead to error in the estimation of the viscous dissi- predicting low surface energy droplets with high viscos-
pation term in Eq. (6). Compared to other models (Scheller ity.
et al. 1995; Mao et al. 1997; Roisman et al. 2009) in the
literature, our prediction results have higher prediction
accuracy for low surface energy droplets with viscosity of
Author contributions JiangFeng Li and Chen Zhao designed and per-
20 mPa s and 50 mPa s. formed the experiments, interpreted results, and co-wrote the manu-
script. Chengyao Wang supervised the work, reviewed, and edited the
manuscript.

Data availability The data that support the findings of this study are
4 Conclusion available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

In this paper, dynamic behaviors of droplet impacting on a Declarations

hydrophobic horizontal surface are investigated via a visu-
alization experiment. The characteristics of droplet impact Conflict of interest The authors declare no competing interests.
behaviors are quantitatively characterized by spreading fac-
tor and the maximum spreading diameter. The effects of
droplet impact velocity, surface wettability, and the impact References
process of low surface tension droplets with different vis-
cosities are explored and analyzed. The main results can be Ahmad M, Schatz M, Casey MV (2018) An empirical approach to
summarized as follows: predict droplet impact erosion in low-pressure stages of steam
turbines. Wear 402:57–63
Bartolo D, Josserand C, Bonn D (2005) Retraction dynamics of aque-
1. The water droplet impacting the hydrophobic surface can ous drops upon impact on non-wetting surfaces. J Fluid Mech
form a liquid column in the retraction stage. If the inertia 545:329–338
of the water droplet is not large enough to make the col- Chandra S, Avedisian CT (1991) On the collision of a droplet with
a solid surface. Proc R Soc Lond Series A Math Phys Sci.
umn leave the surface, the liquid column will break up 432:13–41
and form daughter droplet due to the Rayleigh–Plateau Chen Y, Deng Z (2017) Hydrodynamics of a droplet passing through a
instability. The higher the impact velocity of the droplet, microfluidic T-junction. J Fluid Mech 819:401–434
the upper the position of the daughter droplet leaving the Chen Y, Liu X, Shi M (2013) Hydrodynamics of double emulsion
droplet in shear flow. Appl Phys Lett 102(5):051609
liquid column. The liquid column continues to rise after Chen Y, Wu L, Zhang L (2015) Dynamic behaviors of double emul-
separating the daughter droplet, the liquid column will sion formation in a flow-focusing device. Int J Heat Mass Transf
separate out a new daughter droplet if it does not bounce 82:42–50
off the surface. Clanet C, Béguin C, Richard D, Quéré D (2004) Maximal deformation
of an impacting drop. J Fluid Mech 517:199–208
2. Surface wettability significantly influences the retraction Debnath D, Verma D, Kumar P, Balakrishnan V (2023) Understanding
behaviors but weakly effect the spreading behaviors with the impact dynamics of droplets on superhydrophobic surface. Int
quite close βmax. As for simethicone droplets impact- J Multiph Flow 159:104344
ing on hydrophobic surface, the low surface tension of Du J, Wang X, Li Y, Min Q (2021a) Maximum spreading of liquid
droplets impact on concentric ring-textured surfaces: theoretical
droplets makes it easier to reduce their contact angle to analysis and numerical simulation. Colloids Surf, A 630:127647
a threshold during the spreading process. Thus, it can Du J, Wang X, Li Y, Min Q, Wu X (2021b) Analytical consideration
be observed that droplets with high viscosity still have for the maximum spreading factor of liquid droplet impact on a
a small retraction amplitude. Moreover, there appears smooth solid surface. Langmuir 37(24):7582–7590
Emdadi M, Pournaderi P (2020) Numerical simulation of conducting
a protrusion phenomenon on the three-phase contact droplet impact on a surface under an electric field. Acta Mech
line in a certain viscosity range and increasing droplet 231(3):1083–1103
viscosity inhibits the droplet protrusion behavior due to Gao X, Li R (2014) Spread and recoiling of liquid droplets impacting
more viscous dissipation. solid surfaces. AIChE J 60(7):2683–2691

13
Microfluidics and Nanofluidics (2023) 27:69 Page 11 of 11 69

Hao J, Lu J, Lee L, Wu Z, Hu G, Floryan JM (2019) Droplet splashing Shyam S, Banerjee U, Mondal PK, Mitra SK (2023) Impact dynamics
on an inclined surface. Phys Rev Lett 122(5):054501 of ferrofluid droplet on a PDMS substrate under the influence of
Hsieh SS, Luo SY (2016) Droplet impact dynamics and transient heat magnetic field. Colloids Surf, A 661:130911
transfer of a micro spray system for power electronics devices. Int Tsai P, Hendrix MH, Dijkstra RR, Shui L, Lohse D (2011) Microscopic
J Heat Mass Transf 92:190–205 structure influencing macroscopic splash at high Weber number.
Huang HM, Chen XP (2018) Energetic analysis of drop’s maximum Soft Matter 7(24):11325–11333
spreading on solid surface with low impact speed. Phys Fluids Wang F, Fang T (2020) Retraction dynamics of water droplets after
30(2):022106 impacting upon solid surfaces from hydrophilic to superhydro-
Josserand C, Thoroddsen ST (2016) Drop impact on a solid surface. phobic. Phys Rev Fluids 5(3):033604
Annu Rev Fluid Mech 48:365–391 Wang X, Chen L, Bonaccurso E (2015) Comparison of spontaneous
Jung S, Hoath SD, Hutchings IM (2013) The role of viscoelasticity in wetting and drop impact dynamics of aqueous surfactant solutions
drop impact and spreading for inkjet printing of polymer solution on hydrophobic polypropylene surfaces: scaling of the contact
on a wettable surface. Microfluid Nanofluid 14:163–169 radius. Colloif Polymer Sci 293:257–265
Kim SG, Kim W (2016) Drop impact on a fiber. Phys Fluids Wang CH, Tsai HL, Wu YC, Hwang WS (2016) Investigation of molten
28(4):042001 metal droplet deposition and solidification for 3D printing tech-
Lee JB, Derome D, Guyer R, Carmeliet J (2016) Modeling the maxi- niques. J Micromech Microeng 26(9):095012
mum spreading of liquid droplets impacting wetting and nonwet- Wang F, Yang L, Wang L, Zhu Y, Fang T (2019) Maximum spread of
ting surfaces. Langmuir 32(5):1299–1308 droplet impacting onto solid surfaces with different wettabilities:
Li R, Ashgriz N, Chandra S (2010) Maximum spread of droplet on adopting a rim–lamella shape. Langmuir 35(8):3204–3214
solid surface: low Reynolds and Weber numbers. J Fluids Eng. Wang K, Ma X, Chen F, Lan Z (2021a) Effect of a superhydropho-
https://​doi.​org/​10.​1115/1.​40016​95 bic surface structure on droplet jumping velocity. Langmuir
Li C, Wu G, Li M, Hu C, Wei J (2020) A heat transfer model for 37(5):1779–1787
aluminum droplet/wall impact. Aerosp Sci Technol 97:105639 Wang L, Feng J, Dang T, Peng X (2021b) Dynamics of oil droplet
Lin S, Zhao B, Zou S, Guo J, Wei Z, Chen L (2018) Impact of viscous impacting and wetting on the inclined surfaces with different
droplets on different wettable surfaces: Impact phenomena, the roughness. Int J Multiph Flow 135:103501
maximum spreading factor, spreading time and post-impact oscil- Wildeman S, Visser CW, Sun C, Lohse D (2016) On the spreading of
lation. J Colloid Interface Sci 516:86–97 impacting drops. J Fluid Mech 805:636–655
Liu X, Zhang X, Min J (2019) Spreading of droplets impacting differ- Xu M, Zhang J, Chen R, Lu S (2019) Single droplet with or without
ent wettable surfaces at a Weber number close to zero. Chem Eng additives impacting on high-temperature burning liquid pool. Int
Sci 207:495–503 J Heat Mass Transf 139:77–86
Luo J, Wu SY, Xiao L, Chen ZL (2021) Parametric influencing mecha- Yonemoto Y, Kunugi T (2017) Analytical consideration of liquid drop-
nism and control of contact time for droplets impacting on the let impingement on solid surfaces. Sci Rep 7(1):2362
solid surfaces. Int J Mech Sci 197:106333 Young T (1805) III. An essay on the cohesion of fluids. Philos Trans
Mao T, Kuhn DCS, Tran H (1997) Spread and rebound of liquid drop- R Soc Lond 95:65–87
lets upon impact on flat surfaces. AIChE J 43:2169–2179 Zhang J, Liu H, Ba Y (2019) Numerical study of droplet dynam-
Palacios J, Hernández J, Gómez P, Zanzi C, López J (2013) Experi- ics on a solid surface with insoluble surfactants. Langmuir
mental study of splashing patterns and the splashing/deposition 35(24):7858–7870
threshold in drop impacts onto dry smooth solid surfaces. Exp Zhou B, Cai P, Chen Y (2019) Interfacial mass transfer of water for
Thermal Fluid Sci 44:571–582 fluorobenzene/aqueous solution system in double emulsion. Int J
Pasandideh-Fard M, Qiao YM, Chandra S, Mostaghimi J (1996) Capil- Heat Mass Transf 145:118690
lary effects during droplet impact on a solid surface. Phys Fluids
8(3):650–659 Publisher's Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to
Pournaderi P, Emdadi M (2019) Study of droplet impact on a wall using jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
a sharp interface method and different contact line models. J Appl
Fluid Mech 12(4):1001–1012 Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds
Rioboo R, Tropea C, Marengo M (2001) Outcomes from a drop impact exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the
on solid surfaces. Atomiz Spr 11(2):12 author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted
Roisman IV (2009) Inertia dominated drop collisions. II. An analytical manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of
solution of the Navier-Stokes equations for a spreading viscous such publishing agreement and applicable law.
film. Phys Fluids 21(5):052104
Scheller BL, Bousfield DW (1995) Newtonian drop impact with a solid
surface. AIChE J 41(6):1357–1367

13