Spray formation: an inverse cascade

Yue Ling, Daniel Fuster, Gretar Tryggvason, Stephane zaleski

Published 2015-11-13Version 1

We present a study of droplet formation in a gas-liquid mixing layer using direct numerical simulation. It is seen that two mechanisms compete to generate the droplets: fingering at the tip of the waves and hole formation in the thin liquid sheet. The three dimensional liquid structures are much shorter than the longitudinal wavelength of the instability at the first instant of their formation. As time evolves, the structures evolves to larger and larger scales, in a way similar to the inverse cascade of length scales in droplet impact and impact crown formation.