Crater formation during raindrop impact on sand

Abstract

After a raindrop impacts on a granular bed, a crater is formed as both drop and target deform. After an initial, transient, phase in which the maximum crater depth is reached, the crater broadens outwards until a final steady shape is attained. By varying the impact velocity of the drop and the packing density of the bed, we find that avalanches of grains are important in the second phase and hence, affect the final crater shape. In a previous paper, we introduced an estimate of the impact energy going solely into sand deformation and here we show that both the transient and final crater diameter collapse with this quantity for various packing densities. The aspect ratio of the transient crater is however altered by changes in the packing fraction.

arXiv comment9 pages, 9 figures

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Cited by in corpus (5)

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• Impact drag force exerting on a projectile penetrating into a hierarchical granular bed
• Cold granular targets slow the bulk freezing of an impacting droplet
• Drop impact on wet granular beds: water-content effects on the cratering
• Hydrogel sphere impact cratering, spreading and bouncing on granular media