A wind tunnel study of the effects of collision processes on the shape and oscillation for moderate-size raindrops

Drop-drop collision experiments were carried out at the Mainz vertical wind tunnel. Water drops of 2.5 mm diameter were freely floated at their terminal velocities in a vertical air stream and collided with 0.5 mm diameter droplets. The collisions were recorded with a high speed digital video camera at a frame rate of 1000 per second. Altogether 116 collision events were observed, 75 of which ended with coalescence, and the rest with filament type breakup. The coalescence efficiency and its dependence on the Weber number and on the eccentricity of the colliding drops showed good agreement with earlier numerical studies. Thirty-six recorded collisions were further analyzed in order to characterize the oscillation behavior of large drops after a collisional excitation. Besides the introduction of the experimental method for studying the raindrop collisions, the study primarily focused on the characterization of the average value and the amplitude of the axis ratio variation, the active oscillation modes and their frequencies, and the decay of the oscillations excited by the collision. In spite of the fact that the amplitude of the axis ratio variation increased up to 4 to 6 times of its value before collision - depending on whether the collision ended with coalescence or breakup -, the average axis ratios increased by less than 1%. Since the sizes of largest drops after collision remained practically unchanged during the collision process, the frequencies of the active fundamental (n = 2) oscillation modes of the drops did not change significantly either. Instantaneously after collision the transverse oscillation mode and the whole body rotation dominated, while at a later instant the oblate-prolate mode determined again the drop shape alteration. It was further found that the damping of the oscillation after collision can be adequately described by the viscous decay of a liquid spherical drop.