Spreading dynamics of droplets impacting on oscillating hydrophobic substrates

Abstract: Droplet impact on oscillating substrates is important for both natural and industrial processes. Recognizing the importance of the dynamics that arise from the interplay between droplet transport and substrate motion, in this work, we present an experimental investigation of the spreading of a droplet impacting a sinusoidally oscillating hydrophobic substrate. We particularly focus on the maximum spread of droplets as a function of various parameters of substrate oscillation. We first quantify the maximum spreading diameter attained by the droplets as a function of frequency, amplitude of vibration, and phase at the impact for various impact velocities. We highlight that there can be two stages of spreading. Stage-I, which is observed at all impact conditions, is controlled by the droplet inertia and affected by the substrate oscillation. For certain conditions, a Stage-II spreading is also observed, which occurs during the retraction process of Stage-I due to additional energies imparted by the substrate oscillation. Subsequently, we derive scaling analyses to predict the maximum spreading diameters and the time for this maximum spread for both Stage-I and Stage-II. Furthermore, we identify the necessary condition for Stage-II spreading to be greater than Stage-I. The results will enable optimization of the parameters in applications where substrate oscillation is used to control the droplet spread and, thus, heat and mass transfer between the droplet and the substrate.