On the elasticity of an inertial liquid shock

Abstract

A drop of low viscosity hitting a solid may bounce, provided that the material is highly hydrophobic. As a model of such a situation, we consider here the case of a very hot solid. Then, as discovered by Leidenfrost, a thin layer of vapour sustains the drop, preventing any contact with the substrate. On hitting such a solid, a drop rebounds, and we discuss here the elasticity of the shock. Two very different cases are described: at a large velocity, the weaker the impact velocity, the weaker the elasticity; at a small velocity, a quasi-elastic regime is found. The boundary between the two domains is set by a Weber number, which compares the kinetic and surface energies of the drop, of order unity.