On the bounce: developing reduced models for air–liquid interactions in droplet rebounds

Impact dynamics have long fascinated due to their ubiquity in everyday phenomena, from rain droplets splashing on windscreens to stone-skimming on the surface of the ocean. Impacts are characterized by rapid changes over disparate length scales, which make them expensive or sensitive to capture experimentally and computationally. Here, reduced mathematical models come to the fore, offering a way to get significant physical insight at reduced cost. In this volume, Phillips & Milewski (J. Fluid Mech., 2024) develop a mathematical model allowing for air–water interactions in the low-impact speed regime, in which an impactor bounces or rebounds rather than splashes. Their model offers a reliable way to capture air effects in bouncing, with a range of potential applications including hydrodynamic-quantum analogues and biomimetic water walkers.