Drop impacts in pools: a comparison between high speed imaging and numerical simulations

A feasibility study is done aimed at verifying the capabilities of the open source CFD package OpenFOAM® to predict the dynamic crater evolution and accompanying phenomena during drop impact into deep pools in the cratering regime. Two experimental test cases are chosen, whose crater evolutions are in one case influenced and in the other not influenced by wall effects, so that 2D and 3D domain geometries are respectively required. OpenFOAM® seems to be a promising tool to predict drop impacts already with standard solver settings, even if the finest and most dynamic accompanying phenomena, which also can affect the crater shape, could not be correctly predicted. This may be due to limits in the implemented models and to memory and, thereby, mesh limitations with the present numerical set-up.