Morphological Changes of Small Viscous Droplets under Spreading

TL;DR

This paper models the spreading behavior of viscous droplets on surfaces using a solid-on-solid Monte Carlo approach, capturing morphological features like layering and shape evolution consistent with experimental observations.

Contribution

It introduces a simplified model with a single parameter that effectively describes droplet spreading and morphology, including layering and shape characteristics.

Findings

Qualitative reproduction of experimental density profiles

Observation of dynamical layering phenomena

Description of droplet shapes consistent with experiments

Abstract

Dynamics of spreading of viscous non - volatile fluid droplets on surfaces is modelled using a solid - on - solid model, which is studied with Monte Carlo simulations. Tendency for dynamical layering and surface attraction are in part embedded into the effective dynamics of the model. This allows a description of the spreading process with a single parameter, which strongly influences the morphology of the droplets. The results qualitatively reproduce many experimentally observed density profiles for polymeric fluids, including rounded droplet shapes, and dynamical layering. PACS numbers: 68.10Gw, 05.70.Ln, 61.20.Ja.