Wednesday, September 24, 2008
2008 R&D 100 Winner
Contact angles of liquids on solid surfaces are critical in practical engineering applications. Commercially available contact angle meters only measure the contact angle from the side view direction, and therefore cannot be used to investigate the wetting and spreading characteristics of liquids either on a nonisotropic solid surface or on a nonisothermal solid surface. Overcoming these drawbacks is the Multidimensional Contact Angle Measurement Device (MCAMD), developed by researchers at NASA Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field, Cleveland, Ohio, and the Ohio Aerospace Institute, Brookpark. The MCAMD is a contact meter that provides comprehensive measurements of spreading parameters for common liquid drops on solid surfaces, including local contact angles, contact diameters, drop foot heights, identification of profile mode, and capillary flow pattern. The MCAMD sensitively chronicles the capillary flow inside the liquid drop. Subsequently, the effects of capillary flow induced by the evaporation on the spreading and contact angles of the liquid on the solid surface can be quantitatively estimated, which cannot be done by other commercially available methods. In addition to determining these critical fluid properties, MCAMD significantly lowers the costs of obtaining these measurements, costing up to 15 times less than conventional systems.
Technology
Contact measurement device
Developers
NASA Glenn Research Center
Ohio Aerospace Institute