Fabrication and droplet impact performance of superhydrophobic Ti6Al4V surface by laser induced plasma micro-machining

[Display omitted] •LIPMM was proposed to fabricate a cone-shaped protrusions array with hierarchical structure on the Ti6Al4V surface.•The effect of scan line spacing on micro-nano hierarchical structure morphology was studied.•The relationship between surface wettability, micro-nano structure and chemical composition were revealed.•The behavior of droplets colliding with surfaces with different contact angles was investigated by experiments and simulations.•Super-hydrophobic Ti6Al4V surface can be obtained by LIPMM technique. Titanium alloy Ti6Al4V super-hydrophobic surface plays a key role in enhancing the water repellency and anti-condensation of the fuselage. In this study, laser-induced plasma micromachining (LIPMM) is used for processing an array of cone-shaped protrusions on the surface with a micro-nano hierarchical structure. The relationship between surface wettability, micro-nano structure, and surface chemical composition was studied, meanwhile, the droplet impact behavior was experimented and simulated. The study found that with the aging treatment surface C element distribution and content increased significantly, and the wettability changed from superhydrophilic to hydrophobic. As the scan line spacing (50, 40, 30 μm) decreases, the contact angle increased and the hysteresis contact angle decreased. At 50 times and 30 μm line spacing, the contact angle 151.209°>150°, and the hysteresis contact angle 2.619°