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Electro-Drop Bouncing In Low-Gravity, Erin Stivers Schmidt

Dissertations and Theses

We investigate the dynamics of spontaneous jumps of water drops from electrically charged superhydrophobic dielectric substrates during a sudden step reduction in gravity level. In the brief free-fall environment of a drop tower, with a non-homogeneous external electric field arising due to dielectric surface charges (with surface potentials 0.4-1.8 kV), body forces acting on the jumped drops are primarily supplied by polarization stress and Coulombic attraction instead of gravity. This electric body force leads to a drop bouncing behavior similar to well-known phenomena in 1-g₀, though occurring for much larger drops (~0.5 mL). We show a simple …