Abstract
Recent experiments by Burton and Taborek have demonstrated a droplet to bubble transition in the pinch-off behavior of one inviscid fluid inside another. With D the relative densities D_E/D_I, they find transition from (Rayleigh-Taylor D = 0) droplet to bubble behavior at D ≈ 4. Numerical simulations of this two-fluid system, up to and beyond the initial break up of the inner fluid, have been carried out utilizing Level Set and boundary integral methods. A droplet to bubble transition is predicted: for D sufficiently large, the volume of the satellite droplet shrinks to zero and there is no overturning of the fluid at separation. The calculated self-similar scaling exponents and the pinch-off region shapes match the known behaviour at the droplet and bubble extremes (D = 0, D = 100), but for the physical setting presented here the transition occurs in the range 4 < D < 10.