Abstract
The splashing of a drop impacting onto a liquid pool produces a range of different sized microdroplets. At high impact velocities, the most significant source of these droplets is a thin liquid jet emerging at the start of the impact from the neck that connects the drop to the pool. We use ultrahigh-speed video imaging in combination with high-resolution numerical simulations to show how this ejecta gives way to irregular splashing. At higher Reynolds numbers, its base becomes unstable, shedding vortex rings into the liquid from the free surface in an axisymmetric von Kármán vortex street, thus breaking the ejecta sheet as it forms.
- Received 11 February 2012
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.264506
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Published by the American Physical Society
Focus
Unexpected Turbulence in a Splash
Published 29 June 2012
Some droplets throw out a fine spray as they hit a liquid surface because of a hidden pattern of fluid flow.
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