Novel Methods for Evaluating Shock-Droplet Interactions

The renewed pursuit of high-Mach air vehicle technologies highlights the need to better understand extreme conditions, including shock-induced interactions with atmospheric debris and water droplets. In this work, we seek to develop the understanding of shock-droplet interaction and its relationship to cavitation. In an effort to develop insight into highly non-linear physics, advection integrals are developed to highlight features of droplet deformation and breakup, and to inform a one-way coupled analytical cavitation model. Overall, the effort identifies paths to extract unique links between accumulated forces and their direct relationship to breakup. Results show that reflections of the acoustic wave in the droplet tend to increase the amount of time some areas of the droplet spend under vapor pressure, such that the total underpressure increases far beyond that seen after the initial propagated acoustic wave. The one-way coupled cavitation model presents a simplified method of calculating bubble growth from simulation data, one that is less computationally demanding than Full-Rayleigh-Plesset equation.