The sizes of the jet drops produced by air bubbles bursting on sea- and fresh-water surfaces

Abstract

The size distributions of the top 6 jet drops produced by air bubbles bursting on seaand freshwater surfaces are presented for bubbles with radii from 350 to 1500 μm. There are no significant differences in the results between seaand fresh-water. Except for the top drop, the size distributions are often bimodal. For the top jet drop, the dependence of the average droplet radius, Rd, on bubble radius, Rb, is given by the fit Rd= 0.0337 R ~(μm) which compares well with the results for the top drop reported by Blanchard in 1989. Excluding the droplets in the small modes, the droplet size dependence on bubble size for the lower droplets (those subsequent to the top drop) is, within statistical certainty, the same for all the droplets from the second through the fifth. The data for these droplets is fit by Rd= 0.0165 R ~325 • The probability that a bubble with a given radius produces at least n drops is given for n up to 7, although a small number of bubble bursts were observed to have produced at least 15 jet droplets.