SPEAKER:  James Bird  (Boston University) 

TITLE:  Modeling inertial-capillary transport from bouncing drops to bursting bubbles

ABSTRACT:  Interfacial fluid mechanics, such as the dynamics of drops and bubbles, are important to problems in a variety of fields.  For example, superhydrophobic surfaces can repel droplets; whereas the aerosols formed from bursting bubbles over the ocean can transport pathogens and cloud-condensation nuclei into the atmosphere.  In both of these cases the rapid dynamics depend on a balance of capillary (surface-tension) and inertial forces.  This talk explores two types of transport in this inertial-capillary regime: the amount of heat transferred when a drop bounces off of a superhydrophobic surface and whether jet drops transfer into the atmosphere when a bubble ruptures at an air-liquid interface.  I will show thermal and high-speed movies to highlight the phenomena, and I will discuss how experiments and mathematical modeling have given us insight into the underlying physics.