Hydrodynamic fragmentation of drops

Abstract

Studies of the morphology of fragmentation of liquid drops in a liquid medium due to shock-induced flows are reported. For such high-density-ratio and high-interfacialtension systems, the fragmentation is found to be primarily due to the penetration of the drop by unstable waves. An envelope of conditions which characterize drop breakup in these systems has been deduced. Analytical models, which involve the time constants of both the drop-piercing Taylor instability and the wake-forming shear effects, reflect our experimental results well. In addition, it is found that the mercury/water system studied here should simulate the uranium dioxide/sodium pair, which is of interest in safety studies of fast reactors.