The impact of fuel drops on the walls of combustion chambers is unavoidable in direct-injection automotive engines. These drop-solid interactions can lead to splashing of the lubrication oil, its dilution or removal, which can damage the piston or the liner from dewetting. This can also cause irregular and inferior combustion or soot formation. Understanding the drop-splashing dynamics is therefore important, especially as modern IC engines are being down-sized to achieve higher thermal efficiency. Typical cylinders of IC engines contain metal liners on their walls, which have fine azimuthal grooves to support the lubricating oil as the piston moves inside the cylinder. In this thesis we study how these grooves affect the deposition or splashing of impacting diesel drops, while the solid surface is kept dry without the lubricating oil. For these experiments we use sections of actual cylinder liners and apply high-speed video imaging to capture the details of the drop impacts. The first set of experiments used normal impacts on horizontal substrates. These experiments include a range of drop sizes and impact velocities, to identify impact conditions in Reynolds and Weber number space where the transition from deposition to splashing occurs. We also study the maximum radial spreading factor of the impact lamella, finding about 8% larger spreading along the grooves than perpendicular to them. In the second set of experiments we look at the impact on inclined substrates, where the inclination angle is between 30o–60o. This produces strong asymmetry in the maximum spreading, with the tangential velocity governing the maximum radial motion. The inclined impacts change the splashing threshold, requiring larger impact velocities for splashing. The splashing threshold deviates quantitatively from earlier theories, but shows the same qualitative trends. Furthermore, a new splashing mechanism is observed, where the impact forms a prominent ejecta crown from the downstream edge. This crown ruptures first from the grooves at the sides and subsequently the capillarity detaches the downstream levitated liquid sheet from the substrate generating a myriad of splashed droplets. Preliminary observations with impacts on wet substrates show much stronger crown-formation from the lubricating oil film, with potential for dewetting.

This dissertation describes experiments on drop dynamics. It is split into two main parts: The first investigates the breakup of liquid during the impact of a drop on a pool surface, with focus on the smallest and fastest splashed satellite droplets. The second part studies the much slower coalescence of two minute water droplets in oil inside a micro-channel, with applications to separation of water droplets from crude oil emulsions. First, we study drop-on-liquid impacts in high-speed experiments with extreme time and spatial resolutions using up to 5 million frames-per-second video imaging. This is used to identify and explain two primary mechanisms which produce the smallest and fastest splashed secondary droplets, i.e. ejecta sheets and singular jets. Using a novel 25-m-tall vacuum tube we generate very large impact velocities, to reach regimes in parameter-space never studied before. During the earliest stage of the impact a fast-moving horizontal ejecta sheet emerges from the neck between drop and pool. The breakup of this sheet forms a myriad of micron-size droplets. The ejecta bending is dominated by air resistance, which we investigate under reduced ambient pressures and successfully model based on Bernoulli suction which pulls down the ejecta to hit the pool surface. The ejecta can initially bend up or down depending on the relative viscosities of the drop and pool, bending up if the pool is less viscous. Singular jets are produced by the collapse of drop-impact craters for deep pools, when a dimple forms at the bottom of the crater focusing the energy into a micron-sized region, with jetting velocities over 100 m/s. We use Gerris to study the fine details, obscured in the experiments. In the second part, we study the coalescence of water droplets inside an oil emulsion, developing an empirical relation between the coalescence interaction time tc and the modified shear-rate. This is done by tracking 3-D drop trajectories inside a microchannel, with two perpendicular high-speed cameras. For droplets in crude oil, we implement near-infrared visualization in an innovative device to quantify demulsifier efficiency, using mono-disperse micro-droplets.

<p>Secondary atomization is very important in applications like IC engine and aircraft engine performance, agricultural sprays, and inkjet printing to name a few. In case of IC engines and aircraft engines, a good understanding of the modes of secondary atomization and the resultant drop size can contribute to improving the fuel injection and hence the efficiency of the engine. Similarly, with the help of appropriate secondary atomization desired agro-spray quality, ink usage and print quality can be achieved which would optimize the usage of chemicals and ink respectively and avoid any harmful effects on the environment.</p> <p> </p> <p>One of the reasons for secondary atomization that occurs very often in most of the spray applications is the drop impact on a solid or liquid surface. Especially it is cardinal to understand the impact of a drop on a liquid film since even in case of impact of liquid drops on a solid surface ultimately the drops that are injected at a later time are going have a target surface as a thin liquid film on the solid base due to the accumulation of the previously injected drops. Analysis of drop impact on a liquid film with non-dimensional thickness ranging from 0.1 to 1 has been done thoroughly before (Cossali <i>et al.,</i> 2004, Vander Waal <i>et al.,</i> 2006, Moreira <i>et al.,</i> 2010), however, analysis of drop impact on a liquid film with non-dimensional thickness greater than 1 is still in a rudimentary stage. This work focuses on determining the probability density functions for the secondary drop sizes for drops produced in case of drop impact on a liquid film while varying the h/d ratio beyond 1. The experimental set-up used to study drop impact includes a droplet generator and DIH system as mentioned in, Yao <i>et al.</i> (2017). The DIH set-up includes a CW laser, spatial filter, beam expander and a collimator as adapted from Guildenbecher <i>et al.</i> (2016). The height of drop impact is varied to vary the impact <i>We</i>, by adjusting the syringe height. Three fluids- DI-Water, ethanol and glycerol are tested for examining the effect of viscosity on the resultant drop sizes. Results are plotted with respect to viscosity, impact <i>We</i> and the non-dimensional film thickness, as the fragmentation of drops is directly associated to these parameters. Results indicate that majority of the secondary droplets lie in the size range of 25 µm to 50 µm. It is also observed that the tendency of secondary atomization from crown splashing increases with the increase in <i>We</i> and decreases with increase in <i>Oh.</i></p>

Impact of drops on a dry smooth surface was studied at elevated chamber pressures and low Reynold's numbers to characterize the effect of chamber pressure on drop splashing and spreading. Two drop sizes of methanol, ethanol, propanol, hexadecane and diesel were tested for impact speeds between 1.5 - 3.3 m/s and pressure of upto 12 bars. Splash ratio, unlike the results of Xu et al, increased sharply with decreasing impact speed suggesting that drop speed is a more critical parameter for splash. Drop splashing was also found to be affected by drop shape, with drop distortion having a significant impact on splash promotion or suppression. In accordance with existing theory, drop spreading and maximum spread factor were found to be independent of pressure in the regime tested. These observations provide new insights and comparison data for evaluating and modeling the behavior of alternate fuels like ethanol.

Drop impacts play a key role in many industrial applications, from spray coating of surfaces, to splashing of fuel-droplets within combustion chambers. Splashing, or break-up during ink-jet printing, can cross-contaminate biological assays, or degrade the quality of ink-jet printed products. Crime scene studies of blood splatter can give vital clues for the police. Spreading of plant diseases between nearby leaves by splashing depends on the velocity and trajectory of secondary droplets. In this dissertation, I study the early dynamics of splashing and the dynamics of ejecta sheets under extreme impact conditions, using ultra-high-speed video imaging at up to 5 million fps. In the first part, I show the effect of the surface tension differences on the break-up of the Edgerton crown, I verify that individual droplets hit the crown wall and generated Marangoni holes, thereby causing the crown wall to rupture at multiple locations. In the second part, I investigate the splashing of a drop impacting onto a solid substrate with high impact velocity, I show that for sufficiently high Re, splashing can no longer be suppressed by only reducing the surrounding air pressure. Furthermore, I tracked the earliest splashed spray droplets to catch their maximum velocity. Surprisingly, the splashed droplets can travel at extremely high speed of up to 1 km/s, which is 50 times faster than the impact speed. The influence of viscosity on the lamellar spreading along the substrate was investigated. I find that the intact lamella, following the fine spray, spreads as R(t) ~〖 t〗^(1/3) , while the maximum spreading radius of the drop was shown to be a strong function of viscosity, scaling as β_max∝〖Re〗^0.175. The data did not show a strong effect of surface tension on β_max over a wide range. Therefore, I concluded that surface tension at this parameter space does not play a major role in both splashing nor spreading. In the third part, I study extreme splashing dynamics of the Ejecta sheet when a drop impacts on a thin liquid film with very large impact velocities using the same device, at up to ~ 22 m/s. For this purpose, we have constructed a novel experimental device consisting of a 26-m-tall vacuum tube. I investigate the interplay between viscosity, the surrounding ambient air pressure, and surface tension, on the ejecta shapes and break-up. I show how the bending of the ejecta sheet is primarily produced by air-resistance. This is supported by an analytical and numerical model to quantify the effect of the surrounding air pressure on the sheet bending and touch-down.

Cette thèse porte sur la formation du splash lors de l'impact de gouttes sur substrat solide. Alors que l'influence du gaz environnant a souvent été négligé par le passé, des expériences récentes ont montré que la pression du gaz pouvait contrôler la formation du splash lors de l'impact. Dans cette thèse la formation du splash est étudiée lorsque deux paramètres du gaz varient: la densité et la viscosité dynamique, paramètres par leur rapport aux propriétés du liquide. Deux mécanismes de splash sont identifiés: le splash-jet lorsqu'un jet est formé avant le contact de la goutte avec le solide, le splash-détachement lorsque le splash se forme après le contact liquide-solide. Un diagramme de phase entre ces différents mécanismes est obtenu en fonction des paramètres du gaz. L'influence d'autres paramètres, en particulier l'angle de contact est également étudiée. Finalement, le cas de l'impact d'une goutte sur un liquide très visqueux est étudié à la fois théoriquement, numériquement et expérimentalement. Une méthode numérique originale a été développée afin de prendre en compte la frontière entre les deux liquides et le solide et la comparaison avec des expériences réalisées au laboratoire est très prometteuse. Suivant la valeur de la viscosité du liquide impacté, l'impact se comporte comme dans le cas d'un impact sur surface solide. / A splash is observed under certain conditions as drop impacts on solid. Gas has been generally neglected in the splashing mechanism because of the large liquid/gas density and viscosity ratio. However, experiments demonstrated recently a genuine role of the surrounding gas. Under incompressible assumption, this thesis aims to understand the gas effect in the splashing mechanism using both analytical and numerical methods. By changing the gas density or viscosity, two mechanisms of splashing are identified: ''jet-splash'' and ''detachment-splash''. Curved transition frontiers between outcomes in function of the density and viscosity ratio are found. Both gas inertial and viscous effects are crucial in the splashing formation. The creation and lift-up of the ejecta (the small jet for a jet-splash and the thin liquid sheet for a detachment-splash) is the origin of splash and an aerodynamic force makes the lift-up occur. The contact angle can influence the impact outcome, since a hydrophilic contact angle can eliminate a splash while a hydrophobic contact angle promotes the splash. Finally, drop impact on highly-viscous liquid is investigated. A theoretical model is proposed to deal with the triple-phase dynamics in the numerics. By increasing the viscosity of the liquid basin, dynamics varies from a ''wave-like regime'' to a ''solidification regime''. Experiments of an ethanol drop impacting on a highly-viscous liquid (honey) basin are executed. The basin performed as a solid and the complete suppression of splashing by decreasing the gas pressure is observed. Drop shapes predicted by simulations agree with the experiments.

Two new mechanisms of droplet splashing and breakup during impact have been identified and analyzed. One is the internal rupture of spreading droplet film through formation of holes, and the other is the splashing of droplet due to its freezing during spreading. The mechanism of film rupture was investigated by two different methods. In the first method, circular water films were produced by directing a 1 mm diameter water jet onto a flat, horizontal plate for 10 ms. In the second method, films were produced by making 0.6 mm water droplets impact a solid surface mounted on the rim of a rotating flywheel. Substrate wettability was varied over a wide range, including superhydrophobic. In both cases, the tendency to film rupture first increased and then decreased with contact angle. A thermodynamic stability analysis predicted this behavior by showing that films would be stable at very small or very large contact angle, but unstable in between. Film rupture was also found to be promoted by increasing surface roughness or decreasing film thickness. To study the effect of solidification, the impact of molten tin droplets (0.6 mm diameter) on solid surfaces was observed for a range of impact velocities (10 to 30 m/s), substrate temperatures (25 to 200°C) and substrate materials (stainless steel, aluminum and glass) using the rotating flywheel apparatus. Droplets splashed extensively on a cold surface but on a hot surface there was no splashing. Splashing could be completely suppressed by either increasing the substrate temperature or reducing its thermal diffusivity. An analytical model was developed to predict this splashing behavior. The above two theories of freezing-induced splashing and film rupture were combined to predict the morphology of splats typically observed in a thermal spray process. A dimensionless solidification parameter, which takes into account factors such as the droplet diameter and velocity, substrate temperature, splat and substrate thermophysical properties, and thermal contact resistance between the two, was developed. Predictions from the model were compared with a wide range of experimental data and found to agree well.

Two new mechanisms of droplet splashing and breakup during impact have been identified and analyzed. One is the internal rupture of spreading droplet film through formation of holes, and the other is the splashing of droplet due to its freezing during spreading. The mechanism of film rupture was investigated by two different methods. In the first method, circular water films were produced by directing a 1 mm diameter water jet onto a flat, horizontal plate for 10 ms. In the second method, films were produced by making 0.6 mm water droplets impact a solid surface mounted on the rim of a rotating flywheel. Substrate wettability was varied over a wide range, including superhydrophobic. In both cases, the tendency to film rupture first increased and then decreased with contact angle. A thermodynamic stability analysis predicted this behavior by showing that films would be stable at very small or very large contact angle, but unstable in between. Film rupture was also found to be promoted by increasing surface roughness or decreasing film thickness. To study the effect of solidification, the impact of molten tin droplets (0.6 mm diameter) on solid surfaces was observed for a range of impact velocities (10 to 30 m/s), substrate temperatures (25 to 200°C) and substrate materials (stainless steel, aluminum and glass) using the rotating flywheel apparatus. Droplets splashed extensively on a cold surface but on a hot surface there was no splashing. Splashing could be completely suppressed by either increasing the substrate temperature or reducing its thermal diffusivity. An analytical model was developed to predict this splashing behavior. The above two theories of freezing-induced splashing and film rupture were combined to predict the morphology of splats typically observed in a thermal spray process. A dimensionless solidification parameter, which takes into account factors such as the droplet diameter and velocity, substrate temperature, splat and substrate thermophysical properties, and thermal contact resistance between the two, was developed. Predictions from the model were compared with a wide range of experimental data and found to agree well.

Modelling the ice accretion in glaze regime for the supercooled large droplets is one of the most challenging problems in the aircraft icing field. The difficulties are related to the presence of the liquid water film on the surface in the glaze regime and also the phenomena associated with SLD conditions, specifically the splashing and re-impingement. The steady improvement of simulation methods and the increasing demand for highly optimised aircraft performance, make it worthwhile to try to get beyond the current level of modelling accuracy. A semi-empirical method has been presented to characterize the thin water film in the icing problem based on both analytical and experimental approaches. The experiments have been performed at the Cranfield icing facilities. Imaging techniques have been used to observe and measure the features of the thin water film in the different conditions. A series of numerical simulations based on an inviscid VOF model have been performed to characterize the splashing process for different water film to droplet size ratios and impact angles. Based on these numerical simulations and the proposed methods to estimate the thin water film thickness, a framework has been presented to model the effects of the splashing in the icing simulation. These effects are the lost mass from the water film due to the splashing and the re-impingement of the ejected droplets. Finally, a new framework to study the solidification process of the thin water film has been explored. This framework is based on the lattice Boltzmann method and the preliminary results showed the capabilities of the method to model the dynamics, thermodynamics and the solidification of the thin water film.

Modelling the ice accretion in glaze regime for the supercooled large droplets is one of the most challenging problems in the aircraft icing field. The difficulties are related to the presence of the liquid water film on the surface in the glaze regime and also the phenomena associated with SLD conditions, specifically the splashing and re-impingement. The steady improvement of simulation methods and the increasing demand for highly optimised aircraft performance, make it worthwhile to try to get beyond the current level of modelling accuracy. A semi-empirical method has been presented to characterize the thin water film in the icing problem based on both analytical and experimental approaches. The experiments have been performed at the Cranfield icing facilities. Imaging techniques have been used to observe and measure the features of the thin water film in the different conditions. A series of numerical simulations based on an inviscid VOF model have been performed to characterize the splashing process for different water film to droplet size ratios and impact angles. Based on these numerical simulations and the proposed methods to estimate the thin water film thickness, a framework has been presented to model the effects of the splashing in the icing simulation. These effects are the lost mass from the water film due to the splashing and the re-impingement of the ejected droplets. Finally, a new framework to study the solidification process of the thin water film has been explored. This framework is based on the lattice Boltzmann method and the preliminary results showed the capabilities of the method to model the dynamics, thermodynamics and the solidification of the thin water film.