A Two-Phase SPH Model for Dynamic Contact Angles Including Fluid–Solid Interactions at the Contact Line

Abstract

The description of wetting phenomena on the continuum scale is a challenging problem, since intermolecular interactions, like van der Waals forces between liquid and solid, alter the flow field at the contact line. Recently, these effects were included in the smoothed particle hydrodynamics method by introducing a contact line force (CLF) on the continuum scale. This physically based contact line force model is employed here to simulate two-phase flow in a wide range of wetting dynamics parametrized by capillary number. In particular, dynamic contact angles at various capillary number values are calculated by CLF model and compared to measured values. We find that there is significant disagreement between simulated and measured results, specially at low wetting speeds. It is indeed expected that most of the driving force is dissipated to overcome strong liquid–solid interactions, which are not adequately accounted for in the existing CLF model. Therefore, we have extended that model to account for stick-slip (SSL) behavior of the contact line caused by solid–fluid interactions. The new SSL model results in dynamic contact angle values that are in good agreement with experimental data for the full range of wetting dynamics.