UC Santa Barbara

Transport of liquid drops in fibrous media occurs in various engineering systems such as fog harvesting or cleaning of textiles. The ability to tune or to control liquid movement can increase the system efficiency and enable new engineering applications. In this letter, we experimentally investigate how partially wetting drops on a single fiber can be manipulated by vibrating the fiber. We show that a sliding motion along the fiber or a dripping of the drop can be triggered by standing waves. We identify the conditions on the drop volume, the fiber tilt angle, and the amplitude and frequency of oscillations to observe these different behaviors. Finally, we experimentally illustrate that vibrations can be used to control the transport and the collection of water drops along a fiber using a combination of the sliding and dripping transitions.