How To Approach Showerhead Droplet Breakup

[cgillon]

Hi,

I was wondering what would be the best way to achieve a result similar to a high pressure showerhead? I know how I would achieve this if it were a normal showerhead with many nozzles all emitting fluid. However in this case there are just a few nozzles emitting fluid at high pressure, the fluid should hold it's shape for a brief time then disperse and breakup completely into small droplets. I've attached an image to show what I am trying to achieve.

Any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Hey, sorry for the late reply! In this reference the most specific effect if the veil formed by the liquid after it's emitted, breaking up into separate droplets later in time. You would need to enable surface tension and make absolutely sure to set Droplet Breakup to 1.0 or at least 0.8-0.9; The way to get this cone of liquid should be dictated by the shape and outgoing velocity of the emitter if you want to have more control and not leave the shape to luck.

Cheers!

[cgillon]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply, I thought that a combination of surface tension and droplet breakup would be the solution to this, just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything.

Thanks!

[cgillon]

Hi,

I've run the simulation enabling surface tension and using maximum droplet breakup (1.0), however it still isn't breaking up anywhere near what I need it to. I've also used a noise map on the emission source to try and force it to break up more. I've included an image below.

At the moment it's not so important to have the cone veil effect at the top, but I do need almost complete breakup of the simulation into droplets early in the simulation.

Is there any other way to achieve this result?

Thanks

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Hey, how many steps per frame do you use? Increasing them would allow the surface tension to work more on the fluid and break it up more.

[cgillon]

Hi,

Steps per frame are currently at 12, I can try increasing this however is this not high enough?

Thanks

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Hmm, this is high enough already. Can we have a look at the scene file?

[cgillon]

I've attached the scene file, however I've made some changes since the last screenshot I sent. I have removed the noise map on the emitter source and added a Phoenix Turbulence force into the scene to try and force the droplet break up that way. This gets me closer to the correct result, however it still doesn't look accurate to a real showerhead. It's causing the fluid closer to the emitter source to look like it's being torn apart rather than naturally breaking up into droplets, because of this I'm not sure it's a viable option. I've attached some images to show how it looks.

I've also experimented with the steps per frame, I've found that lowering them actually helps the droplets to break up more?! I've lowered it to 2 and this gets me closer, but again I'm concerned having it so low will cause other problems that mean its not an option to have it that low.

Really I'm wondering if it's possible to achieve a similar effect without the use of turbulence and low spf, and have the droplets breakup on their own naturally which I think may be the only way it will look accurate?

Thanks

[georgi.zhekov]

Hey,

Here is my take on the scene. As Svetlin mentioned before the shape of the emitter is really important in order to get the rounded shape at the start.

Then I used a Turbulence node at the bottom in order to break up the particles into droplets. It's not exactly the effect from the picture but with a bit of tweaking it should get there.

Cheers,