Critical Phenomena of a Drop Through a Stratified Fluid - Selected Topics of Computational and Experimental Fluid Mechanics - page 471

Critical Phenomena of a Drop Through
a Stratified Fluid

Verónica Álvarez González, Angélica Zarazúa Cruz,
Carlos Echeverría Arjonilla, David Porta Zepeda
and Catalina Stern Forgach

Abstract The present paper describes the dynamics of a drop as it falls through
a stratified fluid with two layers. As it enters the fluid, the drop forms an annular
vortex that suffers different deformation processes depending on the conditions of
the experiment. In this work, the only variables that have been modified are the
density of the drop and the height of the upper fluid. Images of the phenomena were
taken directly with a high speed video camera and through a shadowgraph set-up.
To access the videos of the experiment, a http address and a QR image are provided
at the end of the paper.

1 Introduction

Stratified fluids are common in nature due to differences in density or in temperature.
Probably the two examples that affect our daily lives are the atmosphere and the ocean.
However, there are many industrial applications where the knowledge and control
of these phenomena are crucial. It is important to understand how mixing or the
dispersion of particles occur in these media. Sometimes, solid particles or vortical

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