Rupture of Cavity Film Due to Water Entry of Horizontal Superhydrophobic Circular Cylinders

Abstract

AbstractIn materials refining processes such as steelmaking process, bath-entry of agents such as CaCO3 attracts career gas around their entire surface so that the dispersion in the bath can be inhibited. To shed light on the still vague instant phenomenon, this study employs a water model experiment and carries out the visualization. Therefore, this study visually demonstrates the growth and rupture of air cavity due to water entry of horizontal superhydrophobic circular cylinders with the aid of a high-speed camera. Here, we show that the water entry of the horizontal hydrophobic cylinder forms a film of cavity behind the cylinder whereas a hydrophilic cylinder forms a cavity from both ends of the cylinder. In a high Froude number entry, once the cavity film ruptured on both sides of it, the contact lines of the cavity film abruptly move along the surface of the cylinder. In a low Froude number entry, the influence of weak fluid inertia force makes several ruptures on the cavity film which grow individually and split off the cavity. Of a particular interest is the fact that the multi-rupture regime appeals for the spanwise three-dimensionality on the cavity film against the previous studies within two-dimensional treatment. Furthermore, this report finds the trend for some range of Fr that the nondimensionalized closure depth of the cavity film zc with diameter of the cylinder obeys zc/d ∼ Fr1/3 in the range 4.7 ≤ Fr ≤ 40 although it depends on Fr in the water-entry problem of a hydrophobic sphere.