Experimental Study of a Sphere Bouncing on the Water

In this paper, the flow physics and impact dynamics of a sphere bouncing on a water surface are studied experimentally. During the experiments, high-speed camera photography techniques are used to capture the cavity and free surface evolution when the sphere impacts and skips on the water surface. The influences of the impact velocity ( v 1 ) and impact angle ( θ 1 ) of the sphere on the bouncing flow physics are also investigated, including the cavitation evolution, motion characteristics, and bounding law. Regulations for the relationship between v 1 and θ 1 to judge whether the sphere can bounce on the water surface are presented and analyzed by summarizing a large amount of experimental data. In addition, the effect of θ 1 on the energy loss of the sphere is also analyzed and discussed. The experiment results show that there is a fitted curve of v_1=17.5θ_1-45.5 determining the relationship between the critical initial velocity and angle whether the sphere bounces on the water surface.