Liquid droplet impingement erosion on groove roughness

A study of erosion mechanism during the liquid droplet impingement (LDI) on a rough surface was conducted using both numerical simulation and experiments. The numerical simulation was carried out for the LDI on single groove roughness utilizing the two-phase full Eulerian approach based on the high-resolution finite volume method to understand the evolution of the droplet deformation and the wall pressure distribution. The numerical results for the LDI on a large groove roughness showed that the first and the second impacts occurred close to the first contact location of the droplet on the wall, which was similar to the LDI on a smooth surface. The largest impact occurred by the third impact at the groove bottom, which was caused by the side-jet focusing and droplet focusing generated from the contact edge of the droplet. It was also found that the maximum wall pressure at the groove bottom increased with the increase in the groove roughness parameter that represented the geometrical ratio of the groove depth to the droplet diameter. In addition to the numerical studies, the erosion behavior of LDI on single groove roughness was observed experimentally using a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) after spray jet impingement on an aluminum specimen with various groove roughness parameter. The experimental results showed that the LDI erosion on the large groove roughness started from the groove bottom, while the LDI erosion on the small groove roughness started from the groove edge and the groove bottom. These experimental findings are well correlated with the maximum wall pressure distributions obtained from the numerical results.