Numerical model using a Volume-Of-Fluid method for the study of evaporating sessile droplets in both unpinned and pinned modes
Abstract
This article focuses on the numerical study of the evaporation of sessile dropletsusing a Volume-Of-Fluid (VOF) method in the free-software Basilisk. We con-sider pure liquid droplets forming a spherical-cap onto a smooth or rough andnon-corrosive substrate and we investigate two different modes of evaporation:the unpinned mode where the contact angle is constant and the pinned modewhere the wetting area is constant. The numerical method used to implementthe contact angle and for the reconstruction of the interface is fully described,especially for the pinned mode where we propose a new VOF implementation.In the unpinned mode, we perform parametric studies and we show the influenceof the relative humidity and the contact angle on the evaporation process. Forall the explored parameters, the simulations predict that the volume decreaseslinearly with time, which matches the signature behaviour of evaporating un-pinned droplets, irrespective of the geometrical parameters. In the pinned mode,the contact angle analysis indicates a linear decrease in time which was expectedaccording to the theory and validated with some experiments we performed.