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Updated: Jan 24, 2026

Impacts of Free-falling Spheres on a Deep Liquid Pool with Altered Fluid and Impactor Surface Conditions
Published on: February 17, 2019
Deep pool water-impacts of viscous oil droplets
Utkarsh Jain1, Maziyar Jalaal1, Detlef Lohse2
1Physics of Fluids Group and Max Planck Center Twente for Complex Fluid Dynamics, MESA+ Institute and J. M. Burgers Centre for Fluid Dynamics, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500AE Enschede, The Netherlands. u.jain@utwente.nl m.jalaal@utwente.nl.
Abstract:
We experimentally study the impacts of viscous, immiscible oil drops into a deep pool of water. Within the target liquid pool, the impacting drop creates a crater, whose dynamics are studied. It is found that the inertia of pool liquid and drop viscosity are the main factors that determine the crater's maximum depth, while the additional factor of mutual immiscibility between the drop and pool liquids leads to interesting interfacial dynamics along the oil-water interface. We discuss how this can change the crater dynamics in its retraction phase, making possible a type of double-entrainment, whereby a tiny air bubble is entrapped inside a water-entrained oil drop. Further, we report the observation of a type of 'fingering' that occurs along the oil-drop rim, which we discuss, arises as a remnant of the well-known crown-splash instability.
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