CONTACT-ANGLE RELAXATION DURING DROPLET SPREADING - COMPARISON BETWEEN MOLECULAR KINETIC-THEORY AND MOLECULAR-DYNAMICS

The macroscopic behavior of the contact Line during the spontaneous sp reading of a droplet can be described in terms of microscopic quantiti es, specifically the substrate-liquid and Liquid-liquid interactions. Here, for the first time, the results of molecular dynamics simulation s of very large sessile drop systems are compared with the predictions of the molecular-kinetic theory of wetting. Good agreement is obtaine d, with both approaches yielding a consistent set of molecular paramet ers and macroscopic behavior which is consistent with experiments.