Engineering Commons^™

Water Surface Impact And Ricochet Of Deformable Elastomeric Spheres, Randy Craig Hurd

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Soft and deformable silicone rubber spheres ricochet from a water surface when rigid spheres and disks (or skipping stones) cannot. This dissertation investigates why these objects are able to skip so successfully. High speed cameras allow us to see that these unique spheres deform significantly as they impact the water surface, flattening into pancake-like shapes with greater area. Though the water entry behavior of deformable spheres deviates from that of rigid spheres, our research shows that if this deformation is accounted for, their behavior can be predicted from previously established methods. Soft spheres skip more easily because they deform significantly …