No Arabic abstract
The off-center collision of binary bouncing droplets of equal size was studied numerically by a volume-of-fluid (VOF) method with two marker functions, which has been validated by comparing with available experimental results. A non-monotonic kinetic energy recovery with varying impact parameters was found based on the energy budget analysis. This can be explained by the prolonged entanglement time and the enhanced internal-flow-induced viscous dissipation for bouncing droplets at intermediate impact parameters, compared with those at smaller or larger impact parameters. The universality of this non-monotonicity was numerically verified, and thereby an approximate fitting formula was proposed to correlate the kinetic energy dissipation factor with the impact parameter for various Weber numbers and Ohnesorge numbers. From the vortex dynamics perspective, a helicity analysis of droplet internal flow identifies a strong three-dimensional interaction between the ring-shaped vortices and the line-shaped shear layers for off-center collisions. Furthermore, we demonstrated theoretically and verified numerically that the equivalence between the total enstrophy and the total viscous dissipation, which holds for a single-phase flow system confined by stationary boundaries, is not generally satisfied for the two-phase flow system containing gas-liquid interfaces. This is attributed to the work done by the unbalanced viscous stresses, which results from the interfacial flow and the vorticity associated with the movement of the oscillating interface.
Recent studies have demonstrated the significant roles of droplet self-spin motion in affecting the head-on collision of binary droplets. In this paper, we present a computational study by using the Volume-of-Fluid (VOF) method to investigate the spin-affected droplet separation of off-center collisions, which are more probable in reality and phenomenologically richer than head-on collisions. Different separation modes are identified through a parametric study with varying spinning speed and impact parameter. A prominent finding is that increasing the droplet spinning speed tends to suppress the reflexive separation and to promote the stretching separation. Physically, the reflexive separation is suppressed because the increased rotational energy reduces the excessive reflexive kinetic energy within the droplet, which is the cause for the droplet reflexive separation. The stretching separation is promoted because the increased droplet angular momentum enhances the local stretching flow within the droplet, which tends to separate the droplet. The roles of orbital angular momentum and spin angular momentum in affecting the droplet separation are further substantiated by studying the collision between two spinning droplets with either the same or opposite chirality. In addition, a theoretical model based on conservation laws is proposed to qualitatively describe the boundaries of coalescence-separation transition influenced by droplet self-spin motion.
Chemically-active droplets exhibit complex avoiding trajectories. While heterogeneity is inevitable in active matter experiments, it is mostly overlooked in their modelling. Exploiting its geometric simplicity, we fully-resolve the head-on collision of two swimming droplets of different radii and demonstrate that even a small contrast in size critically conditions their collision and subsequent dynamics. We identify three fundamentally-different regimes. The resulting high sensitivity of pairwise collisions is expected to profoundly affect their collective dynamics.
Thin, viscous liquid films subjected to impact events can deform. Here we investigate free surface oil film deformations that arise due to the air pressure buildup under the impacting and rebouncing water drops. Using Digital Holographic Microscopy, we measure the 3D surface topography of the deformed film immediately after the drop rebound, with a resolution down to 20 nm. We first discuss how the film is initially deformed during impact, as a function of film thickness, film viscosity, and drop impact speed. Subsequently, we describe the slow relaxation process of the deformed film after the rebound. Scaling laws for the broadening of the width and the decay of the amplitude of the perturbations are obtained experimentally and found to be in excellent agreement with the results from a lubrication analysis. We finally arrive at a detailed spatio-temporal description of the oil film deformations that arise during the impact and rebouncing of water drops.
Effects of spinning motion on the bouncing and coalescence between a spinning droplet and a non-spinning droplet undergoing the head-on collision were numerically studied by using a Volume-of-Fluid method. A prominent discovery is that the spinning droplet can induce significant non-axisymmetric flow features for the head-on collision of equal-size droplets composed of the same liquid. Specifically, a non-axisymmetric bouncing was observed, and it is caused by the conversion of the spinning angular momentum into the orbital angular momentum. This process is accompanied by the rotational kinetic energy loss due to the interaction between the rotational and radial flows of the droplets. A non-axisymmetric internal flow and a delayed separation after temporary coalescence were also observed, and they are caused by the enhanced interface oscillation and internal-flow-induced viscous dissipation. The spinning motion can also promote the mass interminglement of droplets because the locally non-uniform mass exchange occurs at the early collision stage by non-axisymmetric flow and is further stretched along the filament at later collision stages. In addition, it is found that the non-axisymmetric flow features increase with increasing the orthogonality of the initial translational motion and the spinning motion of droplets.
The aim of this study is to derive accurate models for quantities characterizing the dynamics of droplets of non-vanishing viscosity in capillaries. In particular, we propose models for the uniform-film thickness separating the droplet from the tube walls, for the droplet front and rear curvatures and pressure jumps, and for the droplet velocity in a range of capillary numbers, $Ca$, from $10^{-4}$ to $1$ and inner-to-outer viscosity ratios, $lambda$, from $0$, i.e. a bubble, to high viscosity droplets. Theoretical asymptotic results obtained in the limit of small capillary number are combined with accurate numerical simulations at larger $Ca$. With these models at hand, we can compute the pressure drop induced by the droplet. The film thickness at low capillary numbers ($Ca<10^{-3}$) agrees well with Brethertons scaling for bubbles as long as $lambda<1$. For larger viscosity ratios, the film thickness increases monotonically, before saturating for $lambda>10^3$ to a value $2^{2/3}$ times larger than the film thickness of a bubble. At larger capillary numbers, the film thickness follows the rational function proposed by Aussillous & Quere (2000) for bubbles, with a fitting coefficient which is viscosity-ratio dependent. This coefficient modifies the value to which the film thickness saturates at large capillary numbers. The velocity of the droplet is found to be strongly dependent on the capillary number and viscosity ratio. We also show that the normal viscous stresses at the front and rear caps of the droplets cannot be neglected when calculating the pressure drop for $Ca>10^{-3}$.