Nonspherical liquid droplet falling in air

The dynamics of an initially nonspherical liquid droplet falling in air under the action of gravity is investigated via three-dimensional numerical simulations of the Navier-Stokes and continuity equations in the inertial regime. The surface tension is considered to be high enough so that a droplet does not undergo breakup. Vertically symmetric oscillations which decay with time are observed for low inertia. The amplitude of these oscillations increases for high Gallilei numbers and the shape asymmetry in the vertical direction becomes prominent. The reason for this asymmetry has been attributed to the higher aerodynamic inertia. Moreover, even for large inertia, no path deviations or oscillations are observed.