The free-surface impact of spheres is important to several applications in the military, industry and sports such as the water-entry of torpedoes, dip-coating procedures and slamming of boats. This two-part thesis attempts to explore this field by investigating cavity formation during the impact of spheres with deep liquid pools and cavitation in thin ultra-viscous films. Part I reports results from an experimental study on the formation of stable- streamlined and helical cavity wakes following the free-surface impact of heated Leidenfrost spheres. The Leidenfrost effect encapsulates the sphere by a vapor layer to prevent any physical contact with the surrounding liquid. This phenomenon is essential for the pacification of acoustic rippling along the cavity interface to result in a stable-streamlined cavity wake. Such a streamlined configuration experiences drag coefficients an order of magnitude lower than those acting on room temperature spheres. A striking observation is the formation of helical cavities which occur for impact Reynolds numbers Re0 ≳ 1.4 × 105 and are characterized by multiple interfacial ridges, stemming from and rotating synchronously about an evident contact line around the sphere equator. This helical configuration has 40-55% smaller overall force coefficients than those obtained in the formation of stable cavity wakes. Part II of this thesis investigates the inception of cavitation and resulting structures when a sphere collides with a solid surface covered with a layer of non-Newtonian liquid having kinematic viscosities of up to v0 = 20,000,000 cSt. The existence of shear-stress- induced cavitation during sphere approach towards the base wall (i.e. the pressurization stage) in ultra-viscous films is shown using a synchronized dual-view high-speed imaging system. In addition, cavitation by depressurization is noted for a new class of non-contact cases whereby the sphere rebounds without any prior contact with the solid wall. Horizontal shear rates calculated using particle image velocimtery (PIV) measurements reveal the apparent fluid viscosity to vary substantially as the sphere approaches and rebounds away from the base wall. A theoretical model based on the lubrication assumption is also solved for the squeeze flow in the regime identified for shear-induced cavity events to investigate the criterion for cavity inception in further detail.

Cavity formation resulting from the water-entry of solid objects has been the subject of extensive research owing to its practical relevance in naval, military, industrial, sports and biological applications. The cavity formed by an impacting hydrophobic sphere normally seals at two places, one below (deep seal) and the other above the water surface (surface seal). For Froude numbers , the air flow into the resulting cavity is strong enough to suck the splash crown above the surface and disrupt the cavity dynamics before it deep seals. In this research work we eliminate surface seals by means of a novel practice of using cone splash-guards and examine the undisturbed transient cavity dynamics by impact of hydrophobic spheres for Froude numbers ranging . This enabled the measurement of extremely accurate pinch-off heights, pinch-off times, radial cavity collapse rates, and jet speeds in an extended range of Froude numbers compared to the previous work of Duclaux et al. (2007). Results in the extended regime were in remarkable agreement with the theoretical prediction of scaled pinch-off depth, and experimentally derived pinch-off time for . Furthermore, we investigated the influence of confinement on cavity formation by varying the cross-sectional area of the tank of liquid. In conjunction with surface seal elimination we observed the formation of multiple pinch-off points where a maximum of four deep seals were obtained in a sequential order for the Froude number range investigated. The presence of an elongated cavity beneath the first pinch-off point 5 resulted in evident "kinks" primarily related to the greatly diminished air pressure at the necking region caused by supersonic air flows (Gekle et al. 2010). Such flows passing through second pinch-offs were also found to choke the cavities beneath the first pinch- off depths causing radial expansion and hence disappearance of downward jets.