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Noncontinuous froude number scaling for the closure depth of a cylindrical cavity
Stephan Gekle1, Arjan van der Bos, Raymond Bergmann
1University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500AE Enschede, The Netherlands.
Abstract:
A long, smooth cylinder is dragged through a water surface to create a cavity with an initially cylindrical shape. This surface void then collapses due to the hydrostatic pressure, leading to a rapid and axisymmetric pinch-off in a single point. Surprisingly, the depth at which this pinch-off takes place does not follow the expected Froude(1/3) power law. Instead, it displays two distinct scaling regimes separated by discrete jumps, both in experiment and in numerical simulations (employing a boundary integral code). We quantitatively explain the above behavior as a capillary wave effect. These waves are created when the top of the cylinder passes the water surface. Our work thus gives further evidence for the nonuniversality of the void collapse.
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