Overview:
In our project, we donned the task of creating reproducible, technically accurate, free-fall, binary drop collisions. Our apparatus was built around the apparatus described in F.D. Becchetti, A. Gambino, and M. Ratajczakm's "Colliding Nuclei, Neutron Stars, and Galaxies: Simulations Using a Simple Colliding Liquid-Drop Apparatus" research paper. We hoped to be able to catalogue the different types of drop collisions, as described in N. Ashgriz, J.Y. and J.Y. Poo's research paper, which stated that there were four categories of collisions: bouncing, coalescence, separation, and shattering collisions. Using our setup, we found we could not achieve the velocity required to create shattering collisions. Also, we found that we could not consistently create one type of collision.
This brought us to our final objective. We wanted to create an apparatus which could consistently create the same collision (or nearly). We found three main factors which affected the consistency of the collisions: vibration, oscillation, and fragmentation.
In this website, we present the solution to the three factors affecting the collisions. In addition, we used a high speed camera to record collisions. Finally, we present high resolution pictures, acquired with the improved apparatus, free of most vibration, oscillation, and fragmentation.
Hypothesis:
We hypothesize that there are three main causes of imperfect drop collisions:
Vibration
Fragmentation
Oscillation
Continue on to Method.