Rebound of continuous droplet streams from an immiscible liquid pool

Abstract

We report on the rebound of high velocity continuous water droplet streams from the surface of an immiscible oil pool. The droplets have diameters and velocities of less than 90 μm and 15 m/s, respectively, and were created at frequencies up to 60 kHz. The impact and rebound of continuous droplet streams at this scale and velocity have been largely unexplored. This regime bridges the gap between single drop and jet impacts. The impinging droplets create a divot at the surface of the oil pool that had a common characteristic shape across a wide-range of droplet and oil properties. After impact, the reflected droplets maintain the same uniformity and periodicity of the incoming droplets but have significantly lower velocity and kinetic energy. This was solely attributed to the generation of a flow induced in the viscous oil pool by the impacting droplets. Unlike normally directed impact of millimeter-scale droplets with a solid surface, our results show that an air film does not appear to be maintained beneath the droplets during impact. This suggests direct contact between the droplets and the surface of the oil pool. A ballistic failure limit, correlated with the Weber number, was identified where the rebound was suppressed and the droplets were driven through the oil surface. A secondary failure mode was identified for aperiodic incoming streams. Startup effects and early time dynamics of the rebounding droplet stream were also investigated.