Suppression of sawtooth oscillations when using a finite-difference scheme for mass transfer simulation via the lubrication approximation in a droplet evaporated on a substrate

TL;DR

This paper presents a mathematical model and numerical methods for simulating droplet evaporation, focusing on suppressing sawtooth oscillations in finite-difference schemes to improve uniformity in deposit formation.

Contribution

It introduces a modified numerical method combining splitting, explicit relaxation, and Thomas algorithm to suppress sawtooth oscillations in evaporation simulations.

Findings

Numerical method effectively suppresses sawtooth oscillations.

Simulation predicts flow reversal affecting deposit uniformity.

Software module developed for future evaporative lithography applications.

Abstract

Evaporating droplets and films are used in applications from different fields. Various methods of evaporative self-assembly are of particular interest. The paper describes a mathematical model of mass transfer in a droplet drying on a substrate based on the lubrication approximation. The model takes into account the transfer of a dissolved or suspended substance by a capillary flow, the diffusion of this substance, the evaporation of liquid, the formation of solid deposit, the dependence of the viscosity and the vapor flux density on the admixture concentration. The case with pinning of the three-phase boundary is considered here. Explicit and implicit finite-difference schemes have been developed for the model equations. A modification of the numerical method is proposed, in which splitting by physical processes, the iterative method of explicit relaxation and Thomas algorithm are combined. A practical recipe for suppressing sawtooth oscillations is described using the example of a specific problem. A software module in C++ has been developed, which can be used for evaporative lithography problems in the future. With the help of this module, numerical calculations were carried out, the results of which were compared with the results obtained in the Maple package. Numerical simulation predicted the case in which the direction of the capillary flow changes to the opposite over time due to a change in the sign of the gradient of the vapor flux density. This can lead to a slowdown in the transfer of the substance to the periphery, which as a result will contribute to the formation of a more or less uniform precipitation over the entire contact area of the droplet with the substrate. This observation is useful for improving methods of annular deposit suppression associated with the coffee-ring effect and undesirable for some applications, such as inkjet printing or coating.