Trapping Leidenfrost Drops with Crenelations

Guillaume Dupeux (1, 2) , Marie Le Merrer (1, 2) , Christophe Clanet (1, 2) , David Quéré (1, 2)

1 LadHyX - Laboratoire d'hydrodynamique
2 PMMH - Physique et mécanique des milieux hétérogenes (UMR 7636)

Drops placed on very hot solids levitate on a cushion of their own vapor, as discovered by Leidenfrost. This confers to these drops a remarkable mobility, which makes problematic their control and manipulation. Here we show how crenelated surfaces can be used to increase the friction of Leidenfrost drops by a factor on the order of 100, making them decelerate and be trapped on centimetric distances instead of the usual metric ones. We measure and characterize the friction force as a function of the design of the crenelations.

Domains: Physics [physics]; Mechanics [physics]; Fluid mechanics [physics.class-ph]; Engineering Sciences [physics]; Mechanics [physics.med-ph]; Fluids mechanics [physics.class-ph]

Guillaume Dupeux, Marie Le Merrer, Christophe Clanet, David Quéré. Trapping Leidenfrost Drops with Crenelations. Physical Review Letters, 2011, 107 (11), pp.114503. ⟨10.1103/physrevlett.107.114503⟩. ⟨hal-00998002⟩