Tunable transport of drops on a vibrating inclined fiber

TL;DR

This study demonstrates how vibrating a tilted fiber can control the movement of liquid drops, enabling transitions between sliding and dripping behaviors to improve fluid transport in fibrous systems.

Contribution

It introduces an experimental method to manipulate drop transport on fibers via vibrations, revealing conditions for controlled sliding and dripping transitions.

Findings

Vibrations induce sliding or dripping of drops on fibers.

Drop behavior depends on volume, tilt angle, and vibration parameters.

Vibrations can be used to actively control water collection along fibers.

Abstract

Transport of liquid drops in fibrous media occurs in various engineering systems such as fog harvesting or cleaning of textiles. The ability to tune or to control liquid movement can increase the system efficiency and enable new engineering applications. In this Letter, we experimentally investigate how partially wetting drops on a single fiber can be manipulated by vibrating the fiber. We show that a sliding motion along the fiber or a dripping of the drop can be triggered by standing waves. We identify the conditions on the drop volume, the fiber tilt angle and the amplitude and frequency of oscillations to observe these different behaviors. Finally, we experimentally illustrate that vibrations can be used to control the transport and the collection of water drops along a fiber using a combination of the sliding and dripping transitions.