Experimental investigation of fluid drop spreading on heterogeneous and anisotropic porous media

Study of spreading phenomena on porous substrates is important from theoretical as well as applications point of view. An example of such applications is composite processing, where operations involve displacement of air/volatiles by polymeric fluids through porous media composed of fibers. In this work, dynamics of drop spreading was investigated on fibrous porous substrates used in composite processing. These porous media are heterogeneous and anisotropic. Spreading front of silicon oil drops was tracked on borosilicate glass, quartz, and two different kinds of glass fiber mats: woven fabric and unidirectional. For the woven fabric, spreading front was observed to progress in steps of increasing and decreasing rate. For the unidirectional mat, the spreading front progressed with decreasing rate. The dynamics of spreading were fitted to power law in order to compare results with other porous substrates. © 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.