Drop impact on superheated surfaces

Abstract

At impact of a liquid droplet on a smooth surface heated above the liquid's boiling point, the droplet either immediately boils when it contacts the surfaces (``contact boiling''), or without any surface contact forms a Leidenfrost vapor layer towards the hot surface and bounces back (``gentle film boiling''), or both forms the Leidenfrost layer and ejects tiny droplets upward (``spraying film boiling''). We experimentally determine conditions under which impact behaviors in each regime can be realized. We show that the dimensionless maximum spreading $\gamma$ of impacting droplets on the heated surfaces in both gentle and spraying film boiling regimes shows a universal scaling with the Weber number $\We$ ($\gamma\sim\We^{2/5}$) -- regardless of surface temperature and of liquid properties -- which is much steeper than for the impact on non-heated (hydrophilic or hydrophobic) surfaces ($\gamma\sim\We^{1/4}$). We also intereferometrically measure the vapor thickness under the droplet.