The Stabilization of Droplet Streams

Abstract

Streams of uniformly sized and spaced droplets, produced by launching an ultrasonic wave onto a jet of water to disintegrate it, have been used recently in a number of cloud physics related experiments. It has been found that a stream of droplets is longitudinally unstable and that droplets in the stream tend to bunch and collide. Experimental and theoretical results show that by electrically charging the droplets, this longitudinal bunching may be inhibited. However, if the stream is charged too highly, it will spread laterally into an exponential cone.