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Um método lagrangeano-euleriano arbitrário para a resolução de escoamentos dominados por tensão superficial é apresentado neste trabalho. Tais escoamentos são importantes em muitas aplicações, especialmente em canais capilares que frequentemente aparecem em escoamentos em microescala. A resolução deste tipo de escoamento apresenta vários desafios que são abordados neste trabalho. O escoamento é resolvido somente para a fase líquida, com condições de contorno apropriadas para a superfície livre que delimita o líquido e o gás, que é representada por arestas e vértices da malha computacional. Esta se move e se deforma, sendo que sua qualidade é mantida sob controle para não degradar a solução numérica. As equações de Navier-Stokes são discretizadas pelo método de elementos finitos em um referencial arbitrário. O método de incorporação dos efeitos de tensão superficial e linha de contato é explicado em detalhes. Validações comprovam a precisão do método proposto, com comparações através de soluções pseudo-analíticas para casos simples. Finalmente alguns resultados sobre escoamentos em capilares são apresentados / An arbitrary lagrangian-eulerian finite element method to solve surface tension dominated flows is presented. Such flows are important in many applications, particularly in capillary channels, that appear in microscale flows. The resolution of such flows presents several challenges that are addressed in this work. The flow is solved only in the liquid phase, and proper boundary conditions are applied on the free-surface, bounding the liquid and gas, which is explicitly represented by vertices and edges of the computational mesh. The mesh is moved and deformed, but its quality is kept under control in order to control errors in the numerical solution. The Navier-Stokes equations are discretized by standard Galerkin finite element method in an arbitrary reference. Details of the computation of surface tension and contact line effects are presented. The methodology is validated for a number of simple test cases against known pseudo-analytical solutions, and numerical results are presented, showing the robustness and accuracy of the methodology. Finally, some results about surface-tension-driven flows in capillaries are presented

Um método lagrangeano-euleriano arbitrário para a resolução de escoamentos dominados por tensão superficial é apresentado neste trabalho. Tais escoamentos são importantes em muitas aplicações, especialmente em canais capilares que frequentemente aparecem em escoamentos em microescala. A resolução deste tipo de escoamento apresenta vários desafios que são abordados neste trabalho. O escoamento é resolvido somente para a fase líquida, com condições de contorno apropriadas para a superfície livre que delimita o líquido e o gás, que é representada por arestas e vértices da malha computacional. Esta se move e se deforma, sendo que sua qualidade é mantida sob controle para não degradar a solução numérica. As equações de Navier-Stokes são discretizadas pelo método de elementos finitos em um referencial arbitrário. O método de incorporação dos efeitos de tensão superficial e linha de contato é explicado em detalhes. Validações comprovam a precisão do método proposto, com comparações através de soluções pseudo-analíticas para casos simples. Finalmente alguns resultados sobre escoamentos em capilares são apresentados / An arbitrary lagrangian-eulerian finite element method to solve surface tension dominated flows is presented. Such flows are important in many applications, particularly in capillary channels, that appear in microscale flows. The resolution of such flows presents several challenges that are addressed in this work. The flow is solved only in the liquid phase, and proper boundary conditions are applied on the free-surface, bounding the liquid and gas, which is explicitly represented by vertices and edges of the computational mesh. The mesh is moved and deformed, but its quality is kept under control in order to control errors in the numerical solution. The Navier-Stokes equations are discretized by standard Galerkin finite element method in an arbitrary reference. Details of the computation of surface tension and contact line effects are presented. The methodology is validated for a number of simple test cases against known pseudo-analytical solutions, and numerical results are presented, showing the robustness and accuracy of the methodology. Finally, some results about surface-tension-driven flows in capillaries are presented

Boiling is used in a wide variety of industries, including electronics cooling, distillation, and power generation. Fundamental studies on the boiling process are needed for effective implementation. Key performance characteristics of boiling are the heat transfer coefficient, which determines the amount of heat flux that can be dissipated for a given superheat, and critical heat flux(CHF), the failure point that occurs when vapor blankets the surface. The wettability of a surface is one of the key parameters that affects boiling behavior. Wetting surfaces(e.g., hydrophilic surfaces), typically characterized by a static contact angle below 90°,have better critical heat flux due to effective rewetting, but compromised heat transfer coefficients due to increased waiting times between nucleation of each bubble. Meanwhile, nonwetting surfaces (e.g., hydrophobic surfaces), characterized by static contact angles greater than 90°, have better heat transfer coefficients due to improved nucleation characteristic, but reach critical heat flux early due to surface dry out. However, recent studies have shown that the static contact angle alone offers and incomplete, and sometimes inaccurate, description of this behavior, which is instead governed entirely by the dynamic wettability. Specifically, the receding contact angle impacts the size and contact area of bubbles forming on a surface during boiling, while the advancing contact angle determines how the bubble departs. With this more complete set of wettability descriptors, three characteristic wetting regimes define the boiling behavior: hygrophilic surfaces having advancing and receding contact angles both under 90°; hygrophobic surfaces having both these dynamic contact angles over 90°;and ambiphilic surfaces having a receding contact angle less than 90°, but an advancing contact angle greater than 90°.The goal of this thesis is to experimentally characterize and compare the behavior of boiling surfaces in each of these regimes, observe the contact line behavior, and explain the mechanisms for their differences in performance.

A significant level of research is currently being carried out in the development of driver support systems as they are expected to play a key role in minimizing road vehicle accidents and creating a safe driving environment under harsh weather conditions. However, the performance of some components used by existing driver support systems like LIDAR and visual cameras are affected by extreme weather conditions such as heavy rain fall and snow. Therefore, it is paramount to identify key locations in an automotive vehicle where such systems are least affect by external weather conditions, thereby, improving their overall performance. The field of research that deals with such questions from a simulation perspective is called contamination modeling. At the moment, one of the biggest knowledge gaps in this field is how to consider the effect of different materials on the movement of liquids such as water on different automotive surfaces like glass, plastic, rubber and painted metal. The work presented in this research study has been carried out to investigate and establish the most suitable simulation strategies to match numerical predictions with experimental data for flow of water over different automotive surfaces. Following a comprehensive parametric study of simulation parameters, it was found that the most suitable model that can be tweaked to achieve different flow properties with different surfaces is a dynamic contact angle model. The Blended Kistler model available in STAR-CCM+ required specific values for static, advancing and receding contact angles to optimize a surface for a given material. Therefore, droplet experiments of two droplet sizes were initially carried out for all tested materials at different inclinations and necessary flow parameters were recorded. All experiments were carried out using an approach known as light induced fluorescence imaging where the captured images provided a very convenient method for post processing in computational software. Results from droplet experiments showed that water moved quickest on plastic and slowest on glass. Static contact angle measurements were carried out first on horizontal surfaces. Afterwards, the surface was inclined at 15, 30, 45, 60, and 75 degrees to measure changes in contact angle and velocities. The surfaces for glass and painted metal were directly taken from the door of a Volvo S60 while a separate surface was used for plastic and rubber. These results were then used to create simulation setups for rivulets in STAR-CCM+ with the multiphase modeling approach known as volume of fluid. Rivulet simulations were carried out for all four materials at five different inclinations and the results were compared and validated with experimental data. The results show good correlation between numerical predictions for rivulet movement and experimental data emphasising on the possibility of fine-tuning the surfaces of a simulation setup to represent different material properties.

The wettability and phase change phenomena of water are ubiquitous on biological and artificial surfaces. Properties like water repellency, self-cleaning, coalescence induced condensation jumping, anti-frosting, and dew harvesting arise on surfaces with particular structures and chemistry and are of particular interest for energy and water saving. This thesis collects different studies of wettability and phase change on natural and artificial surfaces: growth and self-ejection of condensation droplets on micro and nanostructured surfaces we fabricated, their applications, the Sliding on Frost of condensation droplets observed on the Cotinus Coggygria leaf, the dew harvesting property of the Old Man of the Andes Cactus enhanced by distance coalescence through microgrooves and finally, a theoretical study of viruses viability in sessile droplets. The first chapter introduces the theoretical framework of wettability and phase changes on surfaces. In the second chapter, we present the self-ejection of condensation droplets from hydrophobic nanostructured microstructures. We modelled analytically the droplets jumping and fabricated surfaces to verify the predictions. The fabricated geometry was inspired by the modelling and the available fabrication techniques. We tested the surfaces in condensation conditions. Using a high frame rate camera coupled with a long working distance microscopy objective, we investigated the growth and ejection transient. We then compared the experimental self-ejection velocity for various structures geometry with our analytical models. In Chapter 3, we investigated the applications of the fabricated surfaces reported in Chapter 2. In Chapter 4, we explore the condensation frosting on the leaf of Cotinus Coggygria, native of our woods and with interesting hydrophobic properties. Covered by wax nanotubules, it exhibits coalescence-induced condensation jumpings that may be a useful cleaning tool. Furthermore, the frost is delayed but not only for the jumping. Surprisingly, at temperatures some degrees below zero, we observed what we called ‘droplet Sliding on Frost bridges’, that further delays frosting. We described the feasibility of this sliding in terms of dynamic contact angles of the surface and contact angles of supercooled water on ice. By capturing high temporal and spatial resolution videos we investigated the sliding on frost and droplet recalescence (fast dendrite growth that partially solidify the liquid). The responsible for the failure of sliding for temperatures from about -8 ° C down appears to be the advancing angle of water on ice that increases with the subcooling rather than the recalescence that blocks the drop in place. These results add a piece to the fundamental research on the supercooled water-ice-vapour interfaces. As it often happens, biological surfaces offer a starting point for the study of fundamental mechanisms and the development of artificial surfaces with optimized properties. In the Chapter 5, the multifunctional roles of hairs and spines in Old Man of the Andes Cactus (Oreocereus trolli) are studied. We study the morphology of the appendages, the hairs wettability, mechanical properties of both, and the dew formation on spines. The longitudinal microgrooves on the spines cause a particular phenomenon of distant coalescence (DC), in which smaller droplets flow totally or partially into larger ones through the microgrooves, with consequent accumulation of water in a few large drops. An earlier study has shown artificial micro-grooved surfaces that exhibit DC are more efficient than flat ones at collecting and sliding dew, and thus these cactus spines could act as soil dew conveyors. The agreement between our analytical model and experimental data verifies that the flow is driven by the Laplace pressure difference between the drops. This allowed us to obtain a general criterion for predicting the total or partial emptying of the smaller drops as a function of the dynamic contact angles of a surface. Based on this criterion, an hydrophilic material with small contact angle hysteresis would allow a greater number of complete drops emptying. The COVID-19 pandemic has raised the problem of contagion from airborne and deposited droplets. In the last chapter, we report the state of the art of experiments on the viability of viruses in deposited droplets. Up to date, it has been experimentally highlighted that the relative viability of some viruses (RV) depends on the material chemistry, temperature, and interestingly, on relative humidity (RH) with a U-shaped trend. One of the current hypotheses is that the cumulative dose of salt concentration (CD) affects RV. We model the RV of viruses in sessile droplets by inserting a RV-CD relation in a model of droplet evaporation. By considering a saline water droplet (one salt) as the simplest approximation of real solutions, we analytically simulate the time evolution of salt concentration, vapor pressure, and droplet volume varying contact angles, droplet sizes, and RH in the range 0–100%. The results elucidate some previously not yet well-understood dynamics, demonstrating how three main regimes—directly implicated in nontrivial experimental trends of virus RV—can be recognized as the function of RH. The proposed approach could suggest a chart of a virus fate by predicting its survival time at a given temperature as a function of RH and contact angle. We found a good agreement with experimental data for various enveloped viruses and predicted in particular for the Phi6 virus, a surrogate of coronavirus, the characteristic U-shaped dependence of RV on RH. Given the generality of the model, once experimental data are available that link the vulnerability of a certain virus (such as SARS-CoV-2) to the concentrations of salts or other substances in terms of CD, it is envisioned that this approach could be employed for antivirus strategies and protocols for the prediction/reduction of human health risks associated with SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses.