Abstract
We use ultra-high-speed video imaging to look at the initial contact of a drop impacting on a liquid layer. We observe experimentally the vortex street and the bubble-ring entrapments predicted numerically, for high impact velocities, by Thoraval et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 108, 2012, article 264506). These dynamics mainly occur within 50 mu s after the first contact, requiring imaging at 1 million f.p.s. For a water drop impacting on a thin layer of water, the entrapment of isolated bubbles starts through azimuthal instability, which forms at low impact velocities, in the neck connecting the drop and pool. For Reynolds number Re above similar to 12 000, up to 10 partial bubble rings have been observed at the base of the ejecta, starting when the contact is similar to 20% of the drop size. More regular bubble rings are observed for a pool of ethanol or methanol. The video imaging shows rotation around some of these air cylinders, which can temporarily delay their breakup into micro-bubbles. The different refractive index in the pool liquid reveals the destabilization of the vortices and the formation of streamwise vortices and intricate vortex tangles. Fine-scale axisymmetry is thereby destroyed. We show also that the shape of the drop has a strong influence on these dynamics.