Bubble detachment assisted by electrowetting-driven interfacial wave

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (10) ◽  
pp. 102105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haolun Xu ◽  
Run Yan ◽  
Sheng Wang ◽  
Chung-Lung Chen
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Haolun Xu

This work reports both theoretically and numerically a novel mechanism of electrowetting-induced jumping droplet and bubble detachment. Six different chapters were explored in this work. Chapter 1 gives the overview of the various works that have been done in the field and the applications of this work. Chapter 2 discusses the numerical method. Chapter 3 discusses the computational setup and experimental validation of the jumping droplet. Chapter 4 analyzes the jumping droplet and bubble detachment induced by EWOD. The flow field and various dynamics of droplet, bubble and interfacial wave have been discussed. Chapter 5 discusses the experimental setup and fabrication of electrowetting devices. The experiments proved that electrowetting driven interfacial wave can be achieved. Chapter 6 summarizes the EWOD principle and the future application. Electroweting-on-dielectric (EWOD) can be used to induce the detachment of micro-water droplet from hydrophobic surface. The level set method has been used to track the interface of water and air. The capillary wave on the droplet interface could be seen during the electrowetting effect. The sudden variation of the droplet base creates a disturbance that propagates along the surface in the form of a capillary wave. As the wetted area is reduced during this transformation, the excess surface energy is converted into kinetic energy which stretches the droplet vertically and eventually leads to the detachment from the substrate; the results have been validated with available experimental data. The physics of stretching, recoiling and detachment of the droplet have been investigated. Inspired by the potential demonstrated by electrowetting-controlled droplets, this work also investigates the potential advantages of electrowetting to disrupt bubble dynamics to improve phase change heat transfer. Electrowetting-on-dielectric is used to modulate the contact point movement at the water-air interface in a thin liquid film. Rapid oscillation of the contact line is achieved by a swift change of voltage under an AC signal. When disturbed with such contact angle changes, the interfacial wave between two immiscible fluids disrupts bubble dynamics. Numerical modeling reveals that an air bubble on a hydrophobic surface can be detached by the trough of such a wave. The frequency of interfacial wave is twice the voltage frequency. A higher voltage frequency leads to a smaller amplitude and higher celerity of the wave, while a lower voltage frequency leads to a larger wave amplitude and lower celerity. The bubble can easily detach when the voltage frequency from 2Hz-10Hz. However, the bubble fails to detach when the voltage frequency is 100Hz. This approach can be useful to improve two-phase cooling performance.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Zhiyue Zhao ◽  
Ning Zhao ◽  
Lide Fang ◽  
Xiaoting Li

During the long-distance transportation of wet-gas, the dominant frequency is of great significance for the study of pipeline fatigue and damage, and the safety production. Therefore, the theoretical and experimental researches for dominant frequency are carried out increasingly. However, most of the current prediction correlation of dominant frequency are mainly applicable to atmospheric pressure conditions (0.1 MPa), and the prediction accuracy is not accurate enough. The paper obtains the time series signal of liquid film thickness by near-infrared (NIR) sensor, and then calculates the wave frequency by the power spectrum density (PSD). The performance of typical predictive correlation is evaluated and analyzed by utilizing the experimental data at different flow and pressure conditions (0.1–0.8) MPa. The structure of Strouhal number and Lockhart-Martinelli (L-M) parameter are optimized reasonably, the mean velocity of the liquid film surface, the density increment of gas core, the gas core mass flow and average liquid film velocity are considered in the L-M parameter, a modified interfacial wave frequency correlation is proposed. The results indicate that the mean absolute error of the predictive correlation is 9.06% (current data) and 25.64% (literature data). The new correlation has a better predictive accuracy.


Fluids ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 80
Author(s):  
Yuria Okagaki ◽  
Taisuke Yonomoto ◽  
Masahiro Ishigaki ◽  
Yoshiyasu Hirose

Many thermohydraulic issues about the safety of light water reactors are related to complicated two-phase flow phenomena. In these phenomena, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis using the volume of fluid (VOF) method causes numerical diffusion generated by the first-order upwind scheme used in the convection term of the volume fraction equation. Thus, in this study, we focused on an interface compression (IC) method for such a VOF approach; this technique prevents numerical diffusion issues and maintains boundedness and conservation with negative diffusion. First, on a sufficiently high mesh resolution and without the IC method, the validation process was considered by comparing the amplitude growth of the interfacial wave between a two-dimensional gas sheet and a quiescent liquid using the linear theory. The disturbance growth rates were consistent with the linear theory, and the validation process was considered appropriate. Then, this validation process confirmed the effects of the IC method on numerical diffusion, and we derived the optimum value of the IC coefficient, which is the parameter that controls the numerical diffusion.


2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amir Al-Wazzan ◽  
Cheok F. Than ◽  
Mahmoud Moghavvemi ◽  
Chia W. Yew

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