Fragmentation

Fragmentation phenomena are reviewed with a particular emphasis on processes that give rise to drops—in the broad sense, the process of atomization. Various observations are brought together to give a unified picture of the overall transition between a compact macroscopic liquid volume and its subsequent dispersion into stable drops. In liquids, primary instabilities always give birth to more or less corrugated ligaments whose breakup determines the shape of the drop-size distribution in the resulting spray. Examples examined here include fragmentation of jets and liquid sheets, formation of spume by the wind blowing over a liquid surface, bursting phenomena upon an impact, and raindrops.