Speaker
Description
The study of wetting is a captivating problem laying at the intersection between physics, chemistry and engineering. The multi-scale nature of this phenomenon makes it challenging to model, calling for advanced numerical techniques. We present an immersed boundary-lattice Boltzmann (IB-LB) method [[1]] to tackle this task, improving on existing work [[2]] in scope and applicability, in order to reproduce droplets on a horizontal, homogeneous solid substrate ranging from hydrophobic to hydrophilic wetting regimes.
The droplet's non-ideal sharp interface, modelled via the immersed boundary (IB) method, is coupled to the inner and outer fluids resolved via the lattice Boltzmann (LB) method; the wetting interaction with the substrate is achieved through a force term designed with the key computational advantage of providing a regularization of the interface profile close to the contact line, avoiding abrupt curvature changes that would cause numerical instabilities.
Extensive model validations against analytical results for equilibrium droplet shape and scaling laws for droplet spreading dynamics are addressed. Furthermore, comparisons against other independent solvers are presented to investigate the hydrodynamic behaviour of the IB-LB method in relation to the implemented contact-line model [[3]]. Finally, the efficient generation of high-fidelity data with the IB-LB method is briefly explored in the context of machine learning for performance acceleration as an ongoing project.
This research is supported by the European Union's HORIZON MSCA Doctoral Networks programme, under Grant Agreement No. 101072344, project AQTIVATE (Advanced computing, QuanTum algorIthms and data-driVen Approaches for science, Technology and Engineering).
[[1]]: Bellantoni et al., (2025), Physical Review E 112, 025305, doi.org/10.1103/mp3p-8j22.
[[2]]: Pelusi et al., (2023), Physics of Fluids 35, 082126, doi.org/10.1063/5.0160096
[[3]]: Bellantoni et al., (2026), arXiv,2604.17463, doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.17463