Drop deposition and low-speed impact on flat, curved and microfinned solid surfaces: comparison between simulations, models and experiments

The two-phase and multiphase incompressible solvers of the OpenFOAM R CFD package were used to simulate the shape, gentle deposition and low-speed impact of water drops on solid surfaces characterized by means of the contact angle. Smooth flat and curved surfaces and microfinned surfaces were used to benchmark such solvers by comparison with numerically-integrated analytical results, models and experimental results. The simulation were performed on single personal computers to verify what can be obtained with a conventional hardware, without using a cluster. The observed performances are satisfactory even if some problems were encountered.