Droplet Impact Behavior on Convex Surfaces with a Circumferential Wettability Difference

Controlling the bouncing behavior of the impacting droplets is an important issue for splay cooling, icing prevention, and other applications. The bouncing behavior of impacting droplets on superhydrophobic curved surfaces and flat substrates with a wettability difference has been widely investigated, and droplets impacting these surfaces show shorter contact times than those on superhydrophobic flat surfaces and droplet transport. However, there have been few studies on the droplet impact behavior on curved surfaces with a wettability difference, where efficient droplet control could be achieved by combining the features. In the present study, droplet impact experiments were conducted using copper cylinders with different circumferential wettabilities from hydrophilic to superhydrophobic, varying the impact velocity, cylinder diameter, and rotation angle. Droplets that impacted the wettability boundary showed asymmetric deformation and moved to the hydrophilic side, owing to the driving force of the wettability difference. Moreover, the droplet behavior was classified into four types: the droplet bounced off the surface, the droplet bounced off the surface and split, the droplet attached to the surface, and the droplet attached to the surface and split. The droplet behavior was estimated by using the maximum spreading width of the droplet impacted on the flat substrate. We evaluated whether the droplets attached to the surface or bounced off the surface after impact using the Weber number and rotation angle, and the estimations were in agreement with the experimental results for cylinder diameters of 4 and 6 mm.