Fragmentation of a drop as it falls in a lighter miscible fluid

Year: 1996

Authors: Arecchi F.T., Buah Bassuah P.K., Francini F., Residori S.

Autors Affiliation: Istituto Nazionale di Ottica Applicata, Largo E. Fermi 6, 50125 Firenze, Italy;
Department of Physics, University of Firenze, 50125 Firenze, Italy;
University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana

Abstract: We report an experimental investigation of the fragmentation process of a heavy drop falling in a lighter miscible fluid. For fixed liquid composition and for different drop sizes, we observe that the fragmentation cascade stops after a few breakups, once each individual droplet has reduced below a critical volume for further splitting. Since each fragmentation is the outcome of a hydrodynamic instability, we expect fluctuations in the size of the fragmented droplets. The main experimental outcomes are the following: (1) the first breakup time scales with the size separation from the critical volume in a universal way independent of the fluid composition; (2) in the region intermediate between
the first and the last fragmentation, the droplet sizes display multifractal properties, with the average dimension D-0 decreasing to a minimum and then increasing again once diffusion prevails; and (3) the droplet height scales with time with an exponent independent of the drop volume and composition.

Journal/Review: PHYSICAL REVIEW E

Volume: 54 (1)      Pages from: 424  to: 429

KeyWords: Break-up; Dimension; Liquid
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.54.424

Citations: 18
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