Formation of compound droplets during fragmentation of turbulent buoyant oil jet in water

Abstract

Fragmentation of a vertical buoyant silicone oil jet injected into sugar water is elucidated by refractive index matching and planar laser-induced fluorescence. Compound droplets containing multiple water droplets, some with smaller oil droplets, form regularly at jet Reynolds numbers of $Re=1358$ and 2122 and persist for at least up to 30 nozzle diameters. In contrast, they rarely appear at $Re=594$. The origin of some of the encapsulated water droplets can be traced back to the entrained water ligaments during the initial roll-up of Kelvin–Helmholtz vortices. Analysis using random forest-based procedures shows that the fraction of compound droplets does not vary significantly with $Re$, but increases rapidly with droplet diameter, reaching 78 % for 2 mm droplets. Consequently, the size distributions of compound droplets have peaks that increase in magnitude and shift to a lower diameter with increasing $Re$. On average, the interior pockets raise the oil–water interfacial area by 15 %, increasing with diameter and axial location. Also, while the oil droplets are deformed by the jet’s shear field, the interior interfaces remain nearly spherical, consistent with prior studies of the deformation of isolated compound droplets for relevant capillary numbers and viscosity ratio.