Droplet rebounds off a fluid bath at low Weber numbers

Abstract We present a method to simulate non-coalescing impacts and rebounds of droplets onto the free surface of a liquid bath, together with new experimental data, focused on the low-speed impact of droplets. The method is derived from first principles and imposes only natural geometric and kinematic constraints on the motion of the impacting interfaces, yielding predictions for the evolution of the contact area, pressure distribution and wave field generated on both impacting masses. This work generalises an existing kinematic-match method whose prior applications dealt with deformation of the surface of the bath only; i.e. neglecting that of the droplet. The method’s extension to include droplet deformation gives predictions that compare favourably with existing experimental results and our new experiments conducted in the low-Weber-number regime.