  This fluid dynamics video shows the impact of a hydrophobic sphere impacting
a water surface. The sphere has a mass ratio of m* = 1.15, a wetting angle of
110 degrees, a diameter of 9.5 mm, and impacts the surface with a Froude number
of Fr = 9.2. The first sequence shows an impact of a sphere on the free surface
illustrating the formation of the splash crown and air cavity. The cavity grows
both in the axial and radial direction until it eventually collapses at a point
roughly half of the distance from the free surface to the sphere, which is
known as the pinch-off point. The second set of videos shows a sphere impacting
the free surface under the same conditions using Particle Image Velocimetry
(PIV) to quantify the flow field. A laser sheet illuminates the mid-plane of
the sphere, and the fluid is seeded with particles whose motion is captured by
a high-speed video camera. Velocity fields are then calculated from the images.
The video sequences from left to right depict the radial velocity, the axial
velocity, and the vorticity respectively in the flow field. The color bar on
the far left indicates the magnitude of the velocity and vorticity. All videos
were taken at 2610 fps and the PIV data was processed using a 16 x 16 window
with a 50% overlap.

Fluid Dynamics