Exploring droplet impact near a millimetre-sized hole: comparing a closed pit with an open-ended pore

Abstract

We investigate drop impact dynamics near closed pits and open-ended pores experimentally. The resulting impact phenomena differ greatly in each case. For a pit, we observe three distinct phenomena, which we denote as a splash, a jet and an air bubble, whose appearance depends on the distance between impact location and pit. Furthermore, we found that splash velocities can reach up to seven times the impact velocity. Drop impact near a pore, however, results solely in splashing. Interestingly, two distinct and disconnected splashing regimes occur, with a region of planar spreading in between. For pores, splashes are less pronounced than in the pit case. We state that, for the pit case, the presence of air inside it plays the crucial role of promoting splashing and allowing for air bubbles to appear.