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Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 024501 (2010) [4 pages]

Supersonic Air Flow due to Solid-Liquid Impact

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Stephan Gekle1, Ivo R. Peters1, José Manuel Gordillo2, Devaraj van der Meer1, and Detlef Lohse1
1Department of Applied Physics and J. M. Burgers Centre for Fluid Dynamics, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands
2Área de Mecánica de Fluidos, Departamento de Ingenería Aeroespacial y Mecánica de Fluidos, Universidad de Sevilla, Avenida de los Descubrimientos s/n 41092, Sevilla, Spain

Received 17 September 2009; revised 5 November 2009; published 11 January 2010

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A solid object impacting on liquid creates a liquid jet due to the collapse of the impact cavity. Using visualization experiments with smoke particles and multiscale simulations, we show that in addition, a high-speed air jet is pushed out of the cavity. Despite an impact velocity of only 1  m/s, this air jet attains supersonic speeds already when the cavity is slightly larger than 1 mm in diameter. The structure of the air flow closely resembles that of compressible flow through a nozzle—with the key difference that here the “nozzle” is a liquid cavity shrinking rapidly in time.

© 2010 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.104.024501
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.104.024501
PACS:
47.55.D-, 47.11.St, 47.60.Kz, 47.80.Jk
 
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