Formation and merging of satellite droplets disintegrated from laminar liquid jets

Numerical simulations of the break-up of laminar liquid jets are presented that reveal the formation of satellite droplets resulting from (i) the non-linear disintegration of jet liquid core and (ii) coalescence of two primary droplets. For the case(i), when satellites disintegrate from the jet liquid core, they tend to show forward, rear and simultaneous merging responses on both the aft side as well as the foreside of the primary droplets that are present downstream that were evidenced experimentally by Vassallo and Ashgriz (1991). However, for the case (ii) the satellites that are formed show similarities with that observed by Zhang et al. (2009) for two stationary droplets at the onset of coalescence. However,our numerical results predict that when two primary drops disintegrated from a liquid jet, that undergoes surface oscillations coalesce, satellites can pinch-off from both the fore-side and the aft-side of the coalesced droplet with effective diameter ratios as small as d1/d2-1.15, 1.97 �respectively. Effect of pressure waves during binary droplet coalescence and the subsequent pinch-off dynamics for satellite formation is presented.