Engineers identify how to keep surfaces dry underwater

Research team is first to identify surface 'roughness' required to achieve amazing feat

20-Aug-2015 - USA

Imagine staying dry underwater for months. Now Northwestern University engineers have examined a wide variety of surfaces that can do just that - and they know why.

The research team is the first to identify the ideal "roughness" needed in the texture of a surface to keep it dry for a long period of time when submerged in water. The valleys in the surface roughness typically need to be less than one micron in width, the researchers found. That's really small - less than one millionth of a meter - but these nanoscopic valleys have macroscopic impact.

Understanding how the surfaces deflect water so well means the valuable feature could be reproduced in other materials on a mass scale, potentially saving billions of dollars in a variety of industries, from antifouling surfaces for shipping to pipe coatings resulting in lower drag. That's science and engineering, not serendipity, at work for the benefit of the economy.

"The trick is to use rough surfaces of the right chemistry and size to promote vapor formation, which we can use to our advantage," said Neelesh A. Patankar, a theoretical mechanical engineer who led the research.

"When the valleys are less than one micron wide, pockets of water vapor or gas accumulate in them by underwater evaporation or effervescence, just like a drop of water evaporates without having to boil it. These gas pockets deflect water, keeping the surface dry," he said.

In a study Patankar and his co-authors explain and demonstrate the nanoscale mechanics behind the phenomenon of staying dry underwater.

In their experiments, the researchers used a variety of materials with and without the key surface roughness and submerged them in water. Samples with the nanoscale roughness remained dry for up to four months, the duration of the experiment. Other samples were placed in harsh environments, where dissolved gas was removed from the ambient liquid, and they also remained dry.

Original publication

Paul R. Jones, Xiuqing Hao, Eduardo R. Cruz-Chu, Konrad Rykaczewski, Krishanu Nandy, Thomas M. Schutzius, Kripa K. Varanasi, Constantine M. Megaridis, Jens H. Walther, Petros Koumoutsakos, Horacio D. Espinosa & Neelesh A. Patankar; "Sustaining dry surfaces under water"; Scientific Reports; 2015

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