Many engineering applications involve the stripping of liquid droplets from surfaces, one example being the entrainment of surface fuel from the inlet valves, ports, cylinder walls and piston crowns of internal combustion engines during the induction process. This configuration is likely to exhibit differences from the more commonly studied case of suspended droplets. In order to study the atomization of liquids from surfaces, shock waves at low Mach numbers (M = 1.05 and 1.12) have been used in the present work to initiate the flow over water droplets with visualization obtained from shadowgraph photographs, high-intensity flash photography and a CCD camera. Visualization paths both normal and angled at ±45° to the flow were used in order to obtain improved examination of the atomization details. Surface wave formation and a specific pattern of droplet distortion followed by stripping, was observed. There are similarities in the processes to those of suspended droplets that are modified by the boundary layer effects. At the Weber numbers considered, a cave-like formation occurs near the wall due to surface flow around the droplet with a major liquid flow directed tangentially across the air flow towards the cave peak where bag or chaotic type break-up and stripping takes place.
