The penetration of a soft solid by a liquid jet, with application to the administration of a needle-free injection

Liquid jet injections have been performed on human skin in vivo and silicone rubber using Intraject needle-free injectors. The discharge characteristics of the liquid jet were measured using a custom-built test instrument. The experiments reveal that a high-speed liquid jet penetrates a soft solid by the formation and opening of a planar crack. The fluid stagnation pressure required for skin penetration decreases with increasing diameter of the liquid jet. These findings are consistent with the slow-speed penetration of a soft solid by a sharp-tipped punch. It is demonstrated that the Shergold–Fleck sharp-tipped punch penetration model [Shergold, O.A., Fleck, N.A., 2004. Mechanisms of deep penetration of soft solids. Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. A 460, 3037–3058.] gives adequate predictions for the pressure required to penetrate a soft solid by a high-speed liquid jet.