Growth of Droplets on a One-Dimensional Surface: Experiments and Simulation

Growth of water droplets (breath figures) undergoing one-dimensional interactions by coalescence is studied by experiments and numerical simulation. The experiments have been performed by condensing water vapor on a scratched silanized glass, and on a surface containing fibers (Iris leaves). Both experiments and simulations confirm the scaling theory which states that if an independent droplet grows as t μ s , then droplets in interaction by coalescence grow as t μ 0 with μ 0 = (δ d /(δ d - δ s ))μ s . (δ d and δ s are, respectively, the dimensionality of the droplets and substrate.) The behavior of the line coverage has been also investigated and compared to the parking limit.