Modelling the water droplet motion on a leaf surface

Abstract

Abstract The main object of the research given in this paper is modelling the water droplet movements on the leaf surface which is an important factor in realising how pesticide, nutrient or water engrossed through the surface. Therefore, a physical model based on mathematics proposed here for producing a realistic trajectory of droplet traversing a leaf surface. A vital feature of our methodology is to build the leaf surface using a recently developed method, by the author, so-called a hybrid CloughTocher cubic polynomial interpolation (CT-CPI) method. The leaf surface consisted of a mesh of triangles over which the hybrid CT-CPI method is build from 3D real life data gathered using a laser scanner. The droplet motion in our model affected by friction, resistance and gravity forces. The model verified using Matlab programming; the outcomes are promising and seem to capture reality well.