Evaporation of multiple droplets

Abstract

We derive an accurate estimate for the diffusive evaporation rates of multiple droplets of different sizes and arbitrary contact angles placed on a horizontal substrate. The derivation, which is based on a combination of Green's second identity and the method of reflections, simply makes use of the solution for the evaporation of a single droplet. The theoretical results can serve as a guide for future computational and experimental studies on the collective evaporation of arrays of droplets, as well as similar multi-body, diffusion-dominated transport problems.