Breakup of a droplet at high velocity impacting a solid surface

We have studied the collision between a droplet of different liquids with high impact energy and a solid plate with varied surface roughness, which is characterized by a dimensionless Weber number (We, defined as the impact inertia of the droplet normalized by its surface force) extending up to 12,000 for water. To make such collision, a technique was developed to generate a single droplet with speed up to 42 m/s, which was initially driven by upstream air flow through a nozzle and accelerated to nearly the same velocity of the high-speed flow downstream. Via a high-speed photographing system, the various splashing mechanisms were investigated and a specific prompt splash on a smooth plate was found at sufficiently high We, which was different somehow from the conventionally defined one that was generally believed to occur only on a rough surface. The radius when multiple secondary droplets were shed out of the rim of the expanding lamella was found to scale almost invariantly with We at large values, whereas the coupled effect of liquid viscosity might affect the ultimate value.