Simulation of thin liquid jets with threads

Abstract

In a thin liquid jet from faucet, shower, fountain, etc., the initially smooth jet surface is gradually perturbed with time to eventually produce droplets. This paper proposes to model such a liquid jet with a thread. It is defined as a series of nodes and an edge connecting a pair of nodes is filled with volume particles. The jet's large-scale behavior is simulated by moving a relatively small number of nodes whereas the small-scale detail is described using the volume particles. The proposed method is capable of handling a large number of jets and describing the special effects, such as liquid chain and fishbone, produced by impinging jets. Furthermore, the proposed method can be neatly integrated into existing fluid simulation systems at a small cost.