Behavior of charged and uncharged drops in high alternating tangential electric fields

The interaction of drops and electric fields occurs in many applications like electrowetting, electrospinning, atomization, but also causes unwanted effects like the aging of high-voltage composite insulators. Water drops are influenced by electric fields due to the polar properties of the water molecules. The behavior of the drops depends on several parameters like the orientation and strength of the electric field, drop volume, and frequency of the applied field. In addition, electric charges can influence the behavior of drops significantly. However, the impact of electric charges, including the interaction with the drop as well as the electric field strength, is far from being well understood. In this work, the impact of electric charges on the behavior of single sessile drops is investigated experimentally under well-defined conditions. The effects of the drop volume, electric field strength, field frequency, and electric charge of the drop are studied. The necessary amount of charge to change the behavior of drops, depending on the applied electric field and drop volume, is determined and different drop behavior regimes are identified. Depending on the boundary conditions, the drop oscillates with the same or double the frequency of the applied voltage. The different regimes are investigated for the first three oscillation modes. The obtained results will help to improve the understanding and to manipulate the behavior of uncharged and charged drops in strong electric fields.