Experimental study of surface roughness effects on wettability

Abstract

In this paper, we present a method to fabricate aluminum alloy 5083 surfaces with different surface roughness using reciprocating type high speed wire cut electrical discharge machining (HS-WEDM). Observe the processed surface by ultra-depth three-dimensional scanning system, obviously notice that craters and bumps were uniformly distributed in the surface which is machined by HS-WEDM. And the size of craters and bumps are relevant to the parameters of the pulse power supply. Then we obtain a surface with static contact angle of 136° and draw a changing trends curve of the static contact angle along with surface roughness by measuring the surface roughness and static contact angle respectively. It has provided experimental basis and theoretical foundation for fabricating aluminum alloy super-hydrophobic surface by HS-WEDM.