A computational study of some rheological influences on the “splashing experiment”

We shall concentrate on the “splashing” problem (particularly that which arises when a liquid drop falls onto the free surface of the same liquid). Modern numerical techniques are employed to provide the theoretical predictions. We show that high ηE can certainly reduce the height of the so-called Worthington jet, thus confirming earlier suggestions, but other rheometrical influences (steady and transient) can also have a role to play and the overall picture may not be as clear as it was once envisaged. We argue that this is due in the main to the fact that splashing is a manifestly unsteady flow. To confirm this proposition, we obtain numerical simulations for the linear Jeffreys model.