Critical density triplets for the arrestment of a sphere falling in a sharply stratified fluid

TL;DR

This study investigates the critical density conditions for a sphere to arrest or bounce when falling through a sharply stratified fluid, combining experiments and potential energy modeling to predict behaviors based on fluid densities and layer thickness.

Contribution

It introduces a new experimental and theoretical framework for estimating the critical sphere density in stratified fluids, accounting for layer thickness and density variations.

Findings

Critical density increases linearly with bottom fluid density.

Critical density approaches bottom layer density as transition layer thickens.

Potential energy-based estimation provides accurate predictions within 0.01 relative difference.

Abstract

We study the motion of a rigid sphere falling in a two-layer stratified fluid under the action of gravity in the potential flow regime. Experiments at a moderate Reynolds number of approximately 20 to 450 indicate that a sphere with the precise critical density, higher than the bottom layer density, can display behaviors such as bounce or arrestment after crossing the interface. We experimentally demonstrate that such a critical sphere density increases linearly as the bottom fluid density increases with a fixed top fluid density. Additionally, the critical density approaches the bottom layer fluid density as the thickness of density transition layer increases. We propose an estimation of the critical density based on the potential energy. With assuming the zero layer thickness, the estimation constitutes an upper bound of the critical density with less than 0.043 relative difference within the experimental density regime 0.997 $g/cm^{3}$ $\sim $ 1.11 $g/cm^{3}$ under the zero layer thickness assumption. By matching the experimental layer thickness, we obtain a critical density estimation with less than 0.01 relative difference within the same parameter regime.