Effect of gravity on the spreading of a droplet deposited by liquid needle deposition technique

• Published in: NPJ microgravity Vol. 9; no. 1; p. 49
• Main Authors: Baldygin, Aleksey, Ahmed, Abrar, Baily, Ryan, Ismail, Md Farhad, Khan, Muhammed, Rodrigues, Nigel, Salehi, Ali-Reza, Ramesh, Megnath, Bhattacharya, Sanjay, Willers, Thomas, Gowanlock, Derek, Waghmare, Prashant R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 21.06.2023; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 639/166/988; 639/766/189; Applied Microbiology; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biotechnology; Classical and Continuum Physics; Energy balance; Flight; Immunology; Life Sciences; Mathematical models; Microgravity; Reynolds number; Space Exploration and Astronautics; Space Sciences (including Extraterrestrial Physics; Spreading; Weightlessness
• ISSN: 2373-8065; 2373-8065
• DOI: 10.1038/s41526-023-00283-2

This study represents an experimental investigation, complemented with a mathematical model, to decipher the effect of gravity on the spreading dynamics of a water droplet. For the theoretical discussion, an overall energy balance approach is adopted to explain the droplet spreading under both microgravity ( μg ) and terrestrial gravity condition. Besides explaining the mechanism of the droplet spreading under microgravity condition achieved during the parabolic flight, a technique with a detailed experimental set-up has also been developed for the successful deposition of droplet. A rational understanding is formulated through experimental investigation and theoretical analysis, which allows us to distinguish the transient variation of the spreading of a droplet, between microgravity and terrestrial gravity condition. The spreading of the droplet is predicted by the non-linear overall energy balance equation, which accounts for the operating parameters in the form of non-dimensional groups like Reynolds number ( Re ), Weber number (We) and Bond number (Bo). To distinctly identify the difference in the drop spreading at terrestrial and microgravity conditions, the Bo with transient gravitational field obtained through the on-board accelerometer is considered. The obtained theoretical results are further corroborated by experimental results which are obtained from the parabolic flight.