This work presents on the hydrodynamics of water droplet impingement on superheated solid surfaces across the entire wettability spectrum: superhydrophilic, hydrophilic, hydrophobic and superhydrophobic. While a large body of work exists on droplet impingement on hydrophilic and superhydrophilic surfaces, impingement on the latter two has been largely neglected and the present results show that dynamics are dramatically different. Experiments ranging in surface temperature from 125 • C to 415 • C and Weber numbers from 10 to 225 were performed and analyzed using high-speed imaging. Some of the most striking differences are as follows. While atomization is always present for impingement on the hydrophilic and superhydrophilic surfaces at temperatures below the Leidenfrost point, atomization is absent at low Weber numbers and at low excess surface temperatures on the hydrophobic surface. At high surface temperatures, the attraction of vapor bubbles on the hydrophobic surface allows a vapor blanket to form more readily thus leading to Leidenfrost behavior at a much lower temperature than classically observed on a hydrophilic surface. One of the most interesting phenomenon that will be discussed includes what will be described as a "pseudo-Leidenfrost" state for impingement on the superhydrophobic surface. Because water can be suspended at the peaks of the roughness on a superhydrophobic interface, vapor escapes from underneath the droplet thus mimicking Leidenfrost behavior for all excess temperatures. This results in minimal atomization for superhydrophobic impingement over the entire regime explored. Finally, maximum spread diameters for Leidenfrost impingement are tabulated as a function of the Weber number for all surfaces and are shown to be larger on the smooth surfaces than on the textured ones indicating that droplet spreading at the Leidenfrost point is not independent

To develop and optimize new scaffold materials for tissue engineering applications, it is important to understand how changes to the scaffold affect the cells that will interact with that scaffold. In this study, we used a hyaluronic acid- (HA-) based hydrogel as a synthetic extracellular matrix, containing modified HA (CMHA-S), modified gelatin (Gtn-S), and a crosslinker (PEGda). By varying the concentrations of these components, we were able to change the gelation time, enzymatic degradation, and compressive modulus of the hydrogel. These changes also affected fibroblast spreading within the hydrogels and differentially affected the proliferation and metabolic activity of fibroblasts and mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). In particular, PEGda concentration had the greatest influence on gelation time, compressive modulus, and cell spreading. MSCs appeared to require a longer period of adjustment to the new microenvironment of the hydrogels than fibroblasts. Fibroblasts were able to proliferate in all formulations over the course of two weeks, but MSCs did not. Metabolic activity changed for each cell type during the two weeks depending on the formulation. These results highlight the importance of determining the effect of matrix composition changes on a particular cell type of interest in order to optimize the formulation for a given application.

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The dynamics of single droplet impingement on micro-textured superhydrophobic surfaces with isotropic and anisotropic slip are investigated. While several analytical models exist to predict droplet impact on superhydrophobic surfaces, no previous model has rigorously considered the effect of the shear-free region above the gas cavities resulting in an apparent slip that is inherent for many of these surfaces. This paper presents a model that accounts for slip during spreading and recoiling. A broad range of Weber numbers and slip length values were investigated at low Ohnesorge numbers. The results show that surface slip exerts negligible influence throughout the impingement process for low Weber numbers but can exert significant influence for high Weber numbers (on the order of 102). When anisotropic slip prevails, the droplet exhibits an elliptical shape at the point of maximum spread, with greater eccentricity for increasing slip and increasing Weber number. Experiments were performed on isotropic and anisotropic micro-structured superhydrophobic surfaces and the agreement between the experimental results and the model is very good.

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