Numerical Simulation of Liquid Film Evaporation in Circular and Square Microcavities

Numerical simulations are performed for liquid film evaporation in circular and square microcavities, which occurs frequently in ink-jet fabrication. The conservation equations of mass, momentum, energy, and mass fraction in the liquid and gas phases are solved using a sharp-interface level-set method, which is modified to include the effects of evaporation and dynamic contact angles. Three-dimensional computations for a square cavity are efficiently carried out in a reduced domain by introducing an effective mass transfer length for the truncated region. The liquid film evaporation pattern is observed to depend strongly on the dynamic contact angles and cavity geometry.