ABSTRACT
The modeling of practical problems of liquid spreading and penetration in fibrous materials requires a better understanding of the interactions of thin liquid films and small droplets with single fibers. Despite several decades of intensive experimental and theoretical studies of fiber wetting phenomena, the fact that the wetting
properties of fibers may differ significantly from those of plane solid surfaces has not been appreciated by experimentalists until recently [1]. This effect becomes more prominent as the fiber diameter decreases and may lead to qualitatively different behaviors (non-wetting versus partial wetting) in the case of nanofibers. The specifics of fluid-fiber interactions are of special technological importance in view of the recent discovery of nanotubes composed of various materials such as carbon, boron nitride, silica, alumina, and titanium oxides, and the rapidly growing research interest in fiber-reinforced nanocomposites and other nanotechnologies [2-4].
