Spreading of liquid droplets on cylindrical surfaces: Accurate determination of contact angle

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Abstract
The characterization of the physicochemical nature of interfaces is a key problem in the field of advanced fibrous composites. The macroscopic regime contact angle, which reflects the energetics of wetting at the solid-liquid interface, is difficult to measure by usual methods in the case of very thin cylindrical fibers, but it may be calculated from the shape of a liquid droplet spread onto a cylindrical monofilament using a method developed by Yamaki and Katayama [J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 19, 2897 (1975)], and B. J. Carroll [J. Coll. Interf. Sci. 57, 488 (1976)]. Unfortunately, measurements of the contact angle based on this method are, so far, unable to provide an accuracy of better than about 5°. In the present article two simple extensions of the method of Yamaki and Katayama and Carroll, are presented, from which highly accurate values of the contact angle may be obtained. This is demonstrated experimentally from the spreading of glycerol droplets on carbon fibers and epoxy droplets on aramid fibers.