Water Vapor Condensation on Bio-inspired Patterned Structures

Abstract

This report presents combined simulation and experimental investigations of water vapors condensing on patterned surfaces. The simulation utilizes the k-epsilon model for turbulence as well as Lee model condensation in ANSYS Fluent Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) package. 3 types of patterning are utilized, including cubes (Square Bumps), semicircles (Circular Bumps), and cones (Triangular Spikes), with a non-patterned control case. The results illustrate that patterns with higher surface area result in higher liquid condensation. The simulation results show that a maximum water condensation of 1.2844e-003 grams over 10 seconds and 35  happened on the Square Bumps structure surface, and experimental results confirmed this with an average water condensation of 5.4156 grams for the same surface, which was also the highest yield for the experimental trials.