Investigation of Artificially Induced Bag-Breakup Fragmentation of Water Surface with Optical Methods

Abstract

A paper is devoted to the investigation of the processes of artificially induced bagbreakup type of spray formation phenomenon within wind-wave interaction. The optical methods are considered. Experiments were carried out on the Thermostratified Wind-Wave Tank (TSWiWaT) of the IAP RAS. High-speed video filming with the shadow imaging method demonstrates the possibility of artificial reproduction of all the main stages of this phenomenon, which are also observed for the sporadically occurred ones: inflation of a thin membrane surrounded by a thicker rim, rupture of the membrane leading to the formation of small droplets, fragmentation of the rim with the formation of large droplets. The processing of the images allowed us to estimate typical lifetimes and sizes of membrane for artificial bagbreakup events which turned out to be close to the same parameters for sporadically occurring ones.