Droplet Rebound and Atomization Characteristics of Vibrating Surfaces

Icing on aircraft wings is one of the leading causes of aircraft crashes. It is mainly caused due to accumulation of ice or snow on the wing surface due to impact with supercooled droplets when passing through clouds at high altitudes, causing loss of lift obtained by the wings. It was found that droplet impact characteristics are dependent on droplet size, surface roughness, surface material hydrophobicity, and droplet impact velocity. As a continuation of the study of droplet impact contact characteristics by varying surface roughness and impact velocity, this study focuses on droplets impacting the vibrating surface at frequencies between 2-7 kHz. Atomization (water drop splitting into smaller droplets and ejecting from the surface) has been observed at different rates for all frequencies. The first set of data is collected by keeping roughness constant and increasing the amplitude of the vibration to observe the critical amplitude at which atomization is initiated. The surface roughness is varied for the second set of experiments. The data is quantified using image processing of the high-speed videos to obtain the rate of ejection for each case.