Direct numerical simulations of drop breakup in turbulent flows and decomposition of the turbulence induced straining

DOI

We investigate drop breakup in turbulent flows of two immiscible fluids. We use the decomposition proposed by Vela-Martín & Avila JFM 2021 to separate the turbulent flow in two regions: the outer region (outside the drop and its boundary layer) and the inner region (inside the drop and its boundary layer). Leveraging an extensive database of single-drop simulations, we perform temporal correlation analyses to show that the straining induced by the outer region is statistically independent of the drop dynamics, whereas the inner region responds to drop deformation and, on average, acts as an energy dissipator. Drawing from these observations, we derive a simple analytical model that returns the breakup rate with high accuracy. Our results prove that, to correctly model the deformation and breakup of drops in turbulent flows, one only needs to know the statistical characteristics of the outer field. We show a clear link between the inherent intermittency of turbulent flows and the memory-less breakup of drops with large surface tensions. In this database we include the code used to perform the ensembles of simulations at different Weber numbers and the main results of those simulations. We also include the Matlab codes used to postprocess the results and generate the figures of the related publication. The Weber number indicated in the name of the folders and files (Wef), also used in the code, must be corrected to obtain the actual one. Specifically, We=0.36Wef. The Weber numbers Wef are writtem as: We_XY or We_XYZ where Wef=X10 + Y1 + Z0.1

Identifier
DOI https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.994057
Metadata Access https://ws.pangaea.de/oai/provider?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=datacite4&identifier=oai:pangaea.de:doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.994057
Provenance
Creator Morón, Daniel ORCID logo; Cannon, Ianto; Vela-Martín, Alberto ORCID logo; Avila, Marc ORCID logo
Publisher PANGAEA
Publication Year 2026
Rights Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
OpenAccess true
Representation
Resource Type Dataset
Format text/tab-separated-values
Size 16 data points
Discipline Natural Sciences; Physics