Hydrodynamic fragmentation of drops

Studies of the morphology of fragmentation of liquid drops in a liquid medium due to shock-induced flows are reported. For high density ratio and high interfacial tension systems, the fragmentation is found to be probably due to the penetration of the drop by unstable waves. An envelope of conditions which characterize drop breakup in these systems has been deduced. Analytical models, which involve the time constants of both the drop-piercing Taylor instability and the wake-forming shear effects, reflect our experimental results well. In addition, it is found that the mercury-water system studied here should simulate the uranium dioxide/sodium pair, which is of interest in safety studies of fast reactors