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 tμs, then droplets in interaction by coalescence grow as tμ0 with μ0 = (δd/(δd - δs))μs. (δd and δs 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.