We report an experimental study of liquid drops moving against gravity, when placed on a vertically vibrating inclined plate, which is partially wetted by the drop. The frequency of vibrations ranges from 30 to 200 Hz, and, above a threshold in vibration acceleration, drops experience an upward motion. We attribute this surprising motion to the deformations of the drop, as a consequence of an up or down symmetry breaking induced by the presence of the substrate. We relate the direction of motion to contact angle measurements. This phenomenon can be used to move a drop along an arbitrary path in a plane, without special surface treatments or localized forcing.
It is generally accepted that the Worthington jet occurs when a droplet impacts onto a liquid pool. However, in this experimental study of the impact of viscous droplets onto a less-viscous liquid pool, we identify another jet besides the Worthington jet, forming a two-jet phenomenon. The two jets, a surface-climbing jet and the Worthington jet, may appear successively during one impact event. By carefully tuning the impact condition, we find that the two-jet phenomenon is jointly controlled by the droplet-pool viscosity ratio, the droplet Weber number, and the droplet-pool miscibility. The me…
Small water droplets or particles located at an oil meniscus typically climb the meniscus due to unbalanced capillary forces. Here, we introduce a size-dependent reversal of this meniscus-climbing behavior, where upon cooling of the underlying substrate, droplets of different sizes concurrently ascend and descend the meniscus. We show that microscopic Marangoni convection cells within the oil meniscus are responsible for this phenomenon. While dynamics of relatively larger water microdroplets are still dominated by unbalanced capillary forces and hence ascend the meniscus, smaller droplets are…
When a liquid droplet impacts a vibrated micro-structured surface with asymmetric topology, the liquids perform a horizontal motion during its bouncing. The moving effect is observed when the liquid is in contact with a low surface energy surface (e.g. hydrophobic) and over a wide amplitude and frequency range. We propose that the motion direction of liquid droplets is driven by a force exerted by the unbalanced vapor flow between the contact of solid and the liquid due to the asymmetric geometry. We observe the levitation and movement dynamics of the droplet impacting on a vibrated micro-stru…
Dense suspensions have previously been shown to produce a range of anomalous and gravity-defying behaviors when subjected to strong vibrations in the direction of gravity. These behaviors have previously been interpreted via analogies to inverted pendulums and ratchets, language that implies an emergent solid-like structure within the fluid. It is therefore tempting to link these flow instabilities to shear jamming (SJ), but this is too restrictive since the instabilities can also be observed in systems that shear thicken but do not shear jam. As an alternative perspective, we re-frame earlier…
We present a fully analytical solution for the natural oscillation of an inviscid sessile drop of arbitrary contact angle on a horizontal plate for the case for the case of low Bond number, when surface tension dominates gravity. The governing equations are expressed in terms of the toroidal coordinate system which yields solutions involving hypergeometric functions. Resonant frequencies are identified for zonal, sectoral and tesseral vibration modes. The predictions show good agreement with experimental data reported in the literature, with better agreement than the model of \citeauthor{bostw…
A small drop of a heavier fluid may float on the surface of a lighter fluid supported by surface tension forces. In equilibrium, the drop assumes a radially symmetric shape with a circular triple-phase contact line. We show theoretically and experimentally that such a floating liquid drop with a sufficiently small volume has two distinct stable equilibrium shapes: one with a larger and one with a smaller radius of the triple-phase contact line. Next, we experimentally study the floatability of a less viscous water drop on the surface of a more viscous and less dense oil, subjected to a low fre…
Dynamics of a dry-rebounding drop was studied experimentally, numerically, and theoretically. Experimental results were reproduced by our computational fluid dynamics simulations, from which time series of kinetic energy, potential energy, and surface energy were obtained. The time series of these energies quantitatively clarified the energy conversion and loss during the dry-rebound. These results were interpreted by using an imaginary spring model and a spherical harmonic analysis. The spring model explained the vertical deformation of the drop, however, could not completely explain the ener…
A previously unreported regime of type III intermittency is observed in a vertically vibrated milliliter-sized liquid drop submerged in a more viscous and less dense immiscible fluid layer supported by a hydrophobic solid plate. As the vibration amplitude is gradually increased, subharmonic Faraday waves are excited at the upper surface of the drop. We find a narrow window of vibration amplitudes slightly above the Faraday threshold, where the drop exhibits an irregular sequence of large amplitude bursting events alternating with intervals of low amplitude activity. The triggering physical mec…
Vortex-induced vibration (VIV) manifests its destructiveness on marine risers in deep-water oil and gas development. Many types of riser fairings are employed in the practical applications of ocean engineering due to their effectiveness in suppressing VIV. However, few reports have been found on the optimal design of the fairing profile. In this study, we conduct shape optimization by integrating computational fluid dynamics and genetic algorithm at a low Reynolds number. The fairing profile is parameterized by Bézier curves with control points adopted as design variables, and lift coefficient…
The focus of this work is to dissect the physical mechanisms that drive and sustain flow-induced, transverse vibrations of cylinders. The influence of different mechanisms is quantified by using a method to partition the fluid dynamic force on the cylinder into distinct, physically relevant components. In conjunction with this force partitioning, calculations of the energy extracted by the oscillating body from the flow are used to make a direct connection between the phenomena responsible for force generation and their effect on driving flow-induced oscillations. These tools are demonstrated …
Liquid drops and vibrations are ubiquitous in both everyday life and technology, and their combination can often result in fascinating physical phenomena opening up intriguing opportunities for practical applications in biology, medicine, chemistry and photonics. Here we study, theoretically and experimentally, the response of pancake-shaped liquid drops supported by a solid plate that vertically vibrates at a single, low acoustic range frequency. When the vibration amplitudes are small, the primary response of the drop is harmonic at the frequency of the vibration. However, as the amplitude i…
The directional motion of sessile drops can be induced by slanted mechanical vibrations of the substrate. As previously evidenced \cite{Brunet07,Brunet09,Noblin09}, the mechanical vibrations induce drop deformations which combine axisymmetric and antisymmetric modes. In this paper, we establish quantitative trends from experiments conducted within a large range of parameters, namely the amplitude $A$ and frequency $f$ of the forcing, the liquid viscosity $η$ and the angle between the substrate and the forcing axis $α$. These experiments are carried out on weak-pinning substrates. For most para…
We report an experimental study of a magnetic liquid drop deposited on a superhydrophobic substrate and subjected to vertical vibrations in presence of a static magnetic field. It is well-known that a flattened drop of usual liquid displays oscillating lobes at its periphery when vibrated. By adding ferromagnetic nanoparticles to a water drop and varying the strength of the magnetic field, we are experimentally able to efficiently tune the resonant frequencies of the drop. By using conservation energy arguments, we show that the magnetic field contribution is equivalent to adding an effective …
We study the effects of vertical sinusoidal vibrations on a liquid droplet with a low surface tension (ethanol) deposited on a solid substrate. In a precise range of amplitudes and frequencies, the drop exhibits a dramatic worm-like shape instability with a strong symmetry breaking, comparable to the one observed by Pucci et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett., 106 (2011) 024503) on a vibrated floating lens. However, the geometry of our system is much simpler since it does not involve the oscillation and deformation of a liquid-liquid-air contact line. We show that the Faraday waves appearing on the surface…
