High-temperature reactive wetting systems: Role of lattice constant

Evaluation of Wetting Behaviors of Liquid Sodium on Transition Metals: An Experimental and Molecular Dynamics Simulation Study

In sodium-cooled fast reactors, the wettability of sodium with materials is closely related to sodium-related operations and the detection accuracy of instruments and meters, so how to achieve the selection of materials with different wettability requirements is a key problem in engineering design. To meet these requirements, the wetting behaviors of liquid sodium with nine transition metals were investigated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The results show that metals such as zinc and gold, which react with sodium to form intermetallic compounds at the interface, exhibit superior wettability. Followed by the metals that have strong interatomic interactions even though they do not react with sodium or dissolve each other, such as cobalt, nickel and copper, while the wettability of these systems tends to be poor at low temperatures. Systems that do not react with each other or have strong interatomic affinities proved to be the most difficult to wet. Notably, metals with the closest-packed crystal structures of fcc and hcp generally have better wettability than those with a bcc structure. They can be a valuable guide for experimental research and technical control.

The formation mechanism of the precursor film in high temperature molten metal systems: insight into structural disjoining pressure

A precursor film is a unique microfluidic entity that arises at the liquid/solid interface. The formation mechanism of this entity in high-temperature systems is yet to be explained, mainly due to the limitations posed by the increased reaction at the solid/liquid interface. In this study, we investigate the formation process of the precursor film in high-temperature molten metal systems (Ag/Ni, Au/Ni, and Cu/Ni) using molecular dynamics simulations. The alloying energies for different alloying pairs were determined to extract the excess energy, which was found to be distributed from the interface to the upper liquid. The pattern of this energy distribution determines the shape of the near-surface liquid, including the precursor film. This relationship is further reflected by the structural disjoining pressure, which is the excess pressure exerted by the ordered microstructures within the wedge-shaped area of the droplet. Strong nonlinearity has been found in the structural disjoining pressure of Ag/Ni and Au/Ni systems, which is considered to be the main reason for the formation of the precursor film. The fluctuation of the dissolution rate is also reflected in the disjoining pressure, and the inhibition of dissolution on the precursor film formation is phenomenally clarified.

High-Temperature Wetting and Dewetting Dynamics of Silver Droplets on Molybdenum Surfaces

The wetting and dewetting behaviors of Ag droplets on Mo(100), Mo(110), and Mo(111) surfaces were investigated over 1200-2000 K via molecular dynamics simulations. We used the diffusion energy barriers of Ag droplets on the three surfaces to analyze the phenomenon of different precursor films and adsorption layers on the different surfaces. Alloying enabled the Mo(111) surface better wettability in both Mo(110) and Mo(111) surfaces, where there were significant precursor films. We observed that the dewetting rate was the fastest on the surface with the densest adsorption layer. Simulations proved that the same molecular kinetic theory model was applicable to not only the wetting process but also the dewetting process on the same surface. We also provided evidence to support the fact that an increased temperature could reduce the time to reach equilibrium for the wetting and dewetting processes.

Universal Model for the Maximum Spreading Factor of Impacting Nanodroplets: From Hydrophilic to Hydrophobic Surfaces

Using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, we investigate impact behaviors of water nanodroplets on hydrophilic to hydrophobic surfaces with static contact angles ranging from 21 to 148° in a wide Weber number range of 15-90, aiming to understand how the surface wettability influences the maximum spreading factor of nanodroplets. We show that the existing macroscale and nanoscale models cannot capture the influence of surface wettability on the maximum spreading factor. We demonstrate that the failure is attributed to the rough estimation of the spreading velocity during the spreading stage, which is assumed to be a constant value in these models. We show that the spreading velocity strongly depends on both the surface wettability and the Weber number. After scaling with the impact velocity, we obtain a universal function of the spreading velocity with respect to the static contact angle and the Weber number. We employ this function to modify the expression of viscous dissipation and develop a new model of the maximum spreading factor. We verify that the model is in excellent agreement with the MD simulations regardless of hydrophilic and hydrophobic surfaces, with the mean relative deviation ranging from 0.88 to 4.75%. We also provide evidence to support the fact that incorporating the influence of surface wettability by modifying viscous dissipation is more reasonable than by modifying surface energy for nanodroplet impact.