Short- and long-term tailing dynamics during the settling of a sphere through an interface

Abstract eng:
We carry out a joint experimental and computational investigation of the settling of spheres made of various materials across the horizontal interface separating two viscous fluids. Over a wide range of conditions, the spheres tow a column of the upper fluid through the lower one for a while. Considering three situations characterized by markedly different inertia-to-viscosity and viscosity ratios, we show that this tail may exhibit strikingly different long-term evolutions. We identify the underlying mechanisms and discuss them in connection with several canonical phenomena, especially the instabilities of sheared viscous interfaces and those of stretched viscous threads.

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