Initial motion drops

As for steady motion, shape changes and oscillations may complicate the accelerated motion of bubbles and drops. Here we consider only acceleration of drops and bubbles which have already been formed formation processes are considered in Chapter 12. As for solid spheres, initial motion of fluid spheres is controlled by added mass, and the initial acceleration under gravity is g y - l)/ y + ) (El, H15, W2). Quantitative measurements beyond the initial stages are scant, and limited to falling drops with intermediate Re, and rising... 

Classical VP occurs as a result of chaotic motion of the driven LF oscillator toward the dissociation threshold. The effective dynamic rate constant e, Q) for the crossing the chaotic sea that separates the initial state of energy e from the dissociation threshold can be defined as a reciprocal time during which the initial population drops by a factor of e. It has been shown that a fair approximation to... 

The accessible motion is generally limited to one third of the inter-electrode initial gap. At this limit, the nonlinear electrostatic force increases more rapidly than a linear restoring force, applied for example by springs attached to the upper electrode. The electrostatic effect then becomes unstable and the mobile electrode drops toward the fixed electrode and sticks to it. 

A modified version of the TAB model, called dynamic drop breakup (DDB) model, has been used by Ibrahim et aU556l to study droplet distortion and breakup. The DDB model is based on the dynamics of the motion of the center of a half-drop mass. In the DDB model, a liquid droplet is assumed to be deformed by extensional flow from an initial spherical shape to an oblate spheroid of an ellipsoidal cross section. Mass conservation constraints are enforced as the droplet distorts. The model predictions agree well with the experimental results of Krzeczkowski. 311 ... 

In practice, this model is oversimplified since the exciting wake shedding is by no means harmonic and is itself coupled with the shape oscillations and since Eq. (7-30) is strictly valid only for small oscillations and stationary fluid particles. However, this simple model provides a conceptual basis to explain certain features of the oscillatory motion. For example, the period of oscillation, after an initial transient (El), becomes quite regular while the amplitude is highly irregular (E3, S4, S5). Beats have also been observed in drop oscillations (D4). If /w and are of equal magnitude, one would expect resonance to occur, and this is one proposed mechanism for breakage of drops and bubbles (Chapter 12). 

In general, oscillations may be oblate-prolate (H8, S5), oblate-spherical, or oblate-less oblate (E2, FI, H8, R3, R4, S5). Correlations of the amplitude of fluctuation have been given (R3, S5), but these are at best approximate since the amplitude varies erratically as noted above. For low M systems, secondary motion may become marked, leading to what has been described as random wobbling (E2, S4, Wl). There appears to have been little systematic work on oscillations of liquid drops in gases. Such oscillations have been observed (FI, M4) and undoubtedly influence drag as noted earlier in this chapter. Measurements (Y3) for 3-6 mm water drops in air show that the amplitude of oscillation increases with while the frequency is initially close to the Lamb value (Eq. 7-30) but decays with distance of fall. 

The peak shift data in Fig. 17 show oscillatory character, as is our first two examples (I2 and LH1). This arises from vibrational wavepacket motion. In addition, the very fast drop in peak shift to about 65% of the initial value in -20 fs results from the interference between the wavepackets created in different intramoleculear modes. This conclusion follows directly from obtaining the frequencies and relative coupling strengths of the intramolecular modes from transient grating studies of IR144, carried out in the same solvents (data not shown). Thus, by visual inspection of Fig. 17, an answer to a long-standing question—What fraction of the spectral width arises from intra- and intermolecular motion —is immediately apparent. 

Fig. 2. Drop motion and mixing in a Y-channel device. The device was constructed by bonding the silicon heater elements and glass channels. (A) Initiation of movement by heating the left interface of two drops (nl level) at their starting locations in the branches of the Y-channel, (B) the movement in progress, and (C) the combined drop...

Electronic motion with a typical frequency of 3 x 10 s" (i>= 10 cm ) is much faster than vibrational motion with a typical frequency of 3 x 10 s (v = 10 cm" ). As a result of this, the electric vector of light of frequencies appropriate for electronic excitation oscillates far too fast for the nuclei to follow it faithfully, so the wave function for the nuclear motion is still nearly the same immediately after the transition as before. The vibrational level of the excited state whose vibrational wave function is the most similar to this one has the largest transition moment and yields the most intense transition (is the easiest to reach). As the overlap of the vibrational wave function of a selected vibrational level of the excited state with the vibrational wave function of the initial state decreases, the transition moment into it decreases cf. Equation (1.36). Absorption intensity is proportional to the square of the overlap of the two nuclear wave functions, and drops to zero if they are orthogonal. This statement is known as the Franck-Condon principle (Franck, 1926 Condon, 1928 cf. also Schwartz, 1973) ... 

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