Droplets in wind
Alireza Hooshanginejad, UMN

Abstract:
Partially wetting water droplets that run on a surface under wind are ubiquitous in nature. Despite its ubiquity, predicting a droplet’s response to a high speed wind flow is a complex problem of fundamental importance in fluid mechanics. >From the practical standpoint, predicting droplet’s behavior in these flow regimes is relevant to aircraft icing, coating processes, etc. To that end, we performed laboratory experiments to investigate the dynamics of partially-wetting water droplets subject to different types of air flows in the high Reynolds regime. We also developed reduced mathematical models based on lubrication theory to rationalize the observations. In this talk, we will discuss two specific scenarios: a droplet in the wake of a solid protrusion, and a droplet subject to a stagnation-point flow.