In this paper Spreading and sorption of a droplet on an anisotropic, layered porus substrate are investigated numerically. Flow in the saturated part of the porus material is governed by Darcy's law. assuming a sharp wetting front separating the saturated regions from the dry re-ions. Numerical results are presented for spreading and sorption ofdroplets in their dependence on the material and process parameters for axisymmetric configurations. Limiting cases of sorption into infinitely thick and very thin porus layers are considered. For an analytical sorption model for thin Substrates fed by an infinite reservoir a correction term taking into account the flow resistance in the inlet region is derived and the consistence of the modified model with numerical and experimental results is shown. For two-layer substrates, numerical results Oil the influence of the layer permeabilities on the sorption kinetics are presented. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.