Deformation of a liquid surface due to an impinging gas jet: A conformal mapping approach

A theoretical and experimental study is performed on the deformation of a free surface between two fluids in a gravitational field, due to a jet in the lighter fluid impinging at right angles to the surface. For the two-dimensional case, we present a mathematical model using the method of conformal mapping. The strength of our method lies in its general application to analytically study the interface between two fluids in a gravitational field, one of which has an arbitrary potential velocity field, while the other is assumed to be motionless. An asymptotic solution is derived for the cavity shape with the density ratio of fluids as the small expansion parameter.