Direct-numerical simulation of droplet breakup in homogeneous isotropic turbulence

We investigate the break-up of an immiscible liquid droplet in homogeneous isotropic turbulence of a continuous liquid. We perform direct-numerical simulations with the Basilisk software (Popinet, 2022), following the approach developed for bubble break-up in Riviere et al 2021 and leveraging an adaptive mesh resolution. A spherical droplet of diameter is placed in fully developed HIT for fixed Taylor-scale Reynolds number and followed until break-up. The Taylor-scale Reynolds number is varied from 40 to 150. A systematic investigation varying the Weber number (comparing inertial and surface tension effects, from 1 to 20), Ohnesorge number (comparing viscous and surface tension effects, from 0.1 to 10) and viscosity ratio (from 0.01 to 200) is carried out. We discuss the map of break-up existence, break-up time/frequency, mode of break-up and child size distribution as a function of the controlling non-dimensional number.



Popinet, Stephane & collaborators 2013–2022 Basilisk. http://basilisk.fr.

A. Riviere, W. Mostert, S. Perrard and L. Deike (2021). Sub-Hinze scale bubble production in turbulent bubble break-up. Journal of Fluid Mechanics. 917, A40.