Raindrop Impact on a Sandy Surface

2014 APS/DFD Gallery of Fluid Motion Award Winner This set of videos shows the impact of water drops on the surface of granular particles—a phenomenon that is likely familiar to all of us who have watched raindrops splashing in a backyard or on a beach. The high-speed photography reveals the detailed liquid-drop impact dynamics at various impact velocities. Such information allows us to construct a simple model for describing the morphology of raindrop imprints in a granular bed. Surprisingly, we found that liquid-drop impact cratering follows the same energy scaling and reproduces the same crater morphology as that of catastrophic asteroid impact cratering. Authors Xiang Cheng, Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota Runchen Zhao, Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota Qianyun Zhang, Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota Hendro Tjugito, Department of Chemi