Successive Rebounds of Impinging Water Droplets on Superhydrophobic Surfaces

When a water droplet strikes a superhydrophobic surface, there may be several to a few tens of rebounds before it comes to rest. Although this intriguing multiphase flow phenomenon has received a great deal of attention from interfacial scientists and engineers, the underlying dynamics have not yet been completely resolved. In this paper, we report on an experimental investigation into the bouncing behavior of water droplets impinging on macroscopically flat superhydrophobic surfaces. We show that the restitution coefficient, which quantifies the energy consumed during impact and rebound, exhibits a nonmonotonic dependence on the Weber number. It is the droplet-surface friction that restricts the rebound height of the impinging droplet, so its restitution coefficient increases with the Weber number when the impact velocity is below a critical value. Above this value, the viscous friction within a thin liquid layer close to the superhydrophobic surface becomes dominant, and thus, the restitution coefficient decreases sharply. On the basis of energy analyses, semiempirical formulas are proposed to describe the restitution coefficient, and these can be employed to predict the number of successive rebounds of impinging droplets on superhydrophobic surfaces.