Contact angle tilted plate technique

For a plate of rectangular cross section having length f and thickness t, P = 2(f + t) these dimensions can be accurately measured. By suspending the plate from a sensitive balance, we can also measure w with considerable accuracy. The apparatus is called a Wilhelmy balance, and the technique the Wilhelmy plate method. Thus, if the contact angle is known from an independent determination by, say, the tilted-plate method, then 7 can be evaluated by Equation (2). 

All the techniques described here are easily conducted, so that both 0a and 0, may be observed. When the tilted plate method is used to evaluate the contact angle, 6r values are obtained if the plate has been pulled out (emersion) from the liquid 0a results if the plate is pushed into the liquid (immersion). Likewise, both values of 0 may be obtained from the Wilhelmy method, depending on whether the liquid is making an initial contact (0a) with the plate or is draining from it (6r). 

There are a variety of simple and inexpensive techniques for measuring contact angles, most of which are described in detail in various texts and publications and will be mentioned only briefly here. The most common direct methods (Fig. 17.4) include the sessile drop (a), the captive bubble (b), the sessile bubble (c), and the tilting plate (d). Indirect methods include tensiometry and geometric analysis of the shape of a meniscus. For solids for which the above methods are not applicable, such as powders and porous materials, methods based on capillary pressures, sedimentation rates, wetting times, imbibition rates, and other properties, have been developed. 

Experimentally, contact angle is measured based on geometry of the droplet or the interfacial tension across the contact line using various techniques such as tilting plate, sessile bubble and drop, captive bubble, the Wilhelmy method, and so on. Similarly, in simulation, three methods are generally used to find the contact angle. 

Advancing and receding contact angle should be determined by the drop expansion/ contraction technique. The tilting plate method has significant shortfall particularly with high hysteresis samples and should be avoided if possible. 

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