Technical Papers and Presentations

The present work investigates the role of suspended liquid-gas interfaces for applications involving the reduction in flow resistance using the COMSOL multiphysics software. A pressure-driven viscous flow of a liquid through microtubes containing superhydrophobic surfaces patterned with alternating micro-grooves and ribs has been considered. Employing a 3D simulation, a fully-developed laminar flow with a uniform bulk velocity has been simulated. Neglecting the fluid dynamics of the gas within the grooves, only the liquid flow has been simulated. Along the inner wall of the tube, the superhydrophobic features are modeled using an alternating no-slip and shear-free boundary conditions to represent the ribs and liquid-gas interfaces, respectively.