Wetting, roughness and flow boundary conditions

TL;DR

This paper explores how surface wettability and roughness influence hydrodynamic behavior, demonstrating that micro- and nanotexturing can induce novel effects like giant slip and superfluidity, with implications for reducing drag and enhancing flow control.

Contribution

It presents new insights into how controlled roughness and wettability can be used to engineer advanced hydrodynamic properties and flow boundary conditions.

Findings

Roughness significantly affects hydrophobic slippage.

Micro- and nanotextures enable novel flow phenomena.

Surface engineering can reduce hydrodynamic drag.

Abstract

We discuss how the wettability and roughness of a solid impacts its hydrodynamic properties. We see in particular that hydrophobic slippage can be dramatically affected by the presence of roughness. Owing to the development of refined methods for setting very well-controlled micro- or nanotextures on a solid, these effects are being exploited to induce novel hydrodynamic properties, such as giant interfacial slip, superfluidity, mixing, and low hydrodynamic drag, that could not be achieved without roughness.