The break-up of axisymmetric liquid sheets

The break-up mechanism of axisymmetric liquid sheets formed by the impingement of two co-axial jets has been examined. Three break-up regimes in the Weber number range from 100 to 3 × 104 are reported. In the first break-up regime, droplets are formed through successive mergings of liquid beads along the nearly circular periphery of the sheet. The formation of beads is caused by Rayleigh instability. In the transition regime, Taylor's cardioid wave pattern prevails in the first half of this regime, while the sheet begins to flap in the second half.

In the second break-up regime, antisymmetric waves on the sheet grow radially. A semi-empirical equation has been deduced to predict the break-up radius of the sheet. The motion of an axisymmetric vibrating membrane with radially decreasing thickness has been studied to include Helmholtz instability as an analogue of the wave motion of the expanding circular sheet. A distorted progressive wave equation has been solved by the WKBJ method to indicate the effect of cylindrical geometry. The calculated wave speed agrees fairly well with experimental data at low Weber numbers.