Article: Numerical study of liquid imbibition and contact line pinning in a sealing gap for corrosion protection of metal housings Journal: Progress in Computational Fluid Dynamics, An International Journal (PCFD) 2024 Vol.24 No.2 pp.65 - 77 Abstract: Sealing gaps are common in housings that protect sensitive assemblies from potential damage by the environment. A prevalent measure to prevent water from reaching the sealing ring are pinning grooves. In this work, the influence of material wettability on the capillary-driven penetration of water into a generalised sealing gap geometry with pinning groove is investigated numerically for the first time. Interface-resolving two-phase flow simulations are performed with a diffuse-interface phase-field method solving the coupled Cahn-Hilliard Navier-Stokes equations. In the simulations of a gap geometry with pinning groove, the imbibition process is slowed down but not stopped for contact angles up to about 50°, while imbibition is prevented for contact angles larger than about 55°. The different behaviour is explained by the edge effect in wetting which interacts with liquid inertia. Volume-of-fluid simulations performed for comparison show similar behaviour with slight differences in imbibition speed and much higher spurious currents. Inderscience Publishers - linking academia, business and industry through research

Title: Numerical study of liquid imbibition and contact line pinning in a sealing gap for corrosion protection of metal housings

Authors: Daniel Hagg; Alexander Eifert; Torsten Troßmann; Bettina Frohnapfel; Holger Marschall; Martin Wörner

Addresses: Robert Bosch GmbH, Robert-Bosch-Campus 1, 71272 Renningen, Germany ' Robert Bosch GmbH, Robert-Bosch-Campus 1, 71272 Renningen, Germany ' Robert Bosch GmbH, Robert-Bosch-Campus 1, 71272 Renningen, Germany ' Institute of Fluid Mechanics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Kaiserstr. 10, 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany ' Computational Multiphase Flow, Technical University Darmstadt, Alarich-Weiss-Straße 10, 64287 Darmstadt, Germany ' Institute of Catalysis Research and Technology, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Engesserstr. 20, 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany

Abstract: Sealing gaps are common in housings that protect sensitive assemblies from potential damage by the environment. A prevalent measure to prevent water from reaching the sealing ring are pinning grooves. In this work, the influence of material wettability on the capillary-driven penetration of water into a generalised sealing gap geometry with pinning groove is investigated numerically for the first time. Interface-resolving two-phase flow simulations are performed with a diffuse-interface phase-field method solving the coupled Cahn-Hilliard Navier-Stokes equations. In the simulations of a gap geometry with pinning groove, the imbibition process is slowed down but not stopped for contact angles up to about 50°, while imbibition is prevented for contact angles larger than about 55°. The different behaviour is explained by the edge effect in wetting which interacts with liquid inertia. Volume-of-fluid simulations performed for comparison show similar behaviour with slight differences in imbibition speed and much higher spurious currents.

Keywords: Cahn-Hilliard; capillarity; diffuse interface; edge effect in wetting; electronic housing; imbibition; phase-field method; sealing gap; two-phase simulation; volume-of-fluid; VOF.

DOI: 10.1504/PCFD.2024.137058

Progress in Computational Fluid Dynamics, An International Journal, 2024 Vol.24 No.2, pp.65 - 77

Received: 16 Aug 2022
Accepted: 12 Dec 2022
Published online: 01 Mar 2024 *

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Title: Numerical study of liquid imbibition and contact line pinning in a sealing gap for corrosion protection of metal housings

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