Water droplet trajectories in a sprinkler jet flow: The quantum hydrodynamic framework

The design of a sprinkler irrigation system is always associated with a full understanding of the kinematics of the droplets during their aerial path. Resolving this problem involves both theoretical and experimental considerations. Among the theoretical studies the classical mechanical approach, based on Newton's law, offers a useful tool to describe the trajectories of water droplets from the sprinkler nozzle to the ground. The problem becomes even more complicated when not just a single droplet alone is assessed but a multi-droplet system is accounted for. In addition to the inter-parameter dependencies, an inter-droplet reciprocal repulsion is also observed, mainly due to electrical interactions between the hydrogen and oxygen atoms of the different water molecules. In this context, the whole classic-quantum and single-droplet versus multi-droplet alternatives need to be discussed and pinpointed, and these are the main aims of the present paper which focuses on the theoretical part of the issue, thus highlighting new perspectives of a deeper comprehension in the spray flow-related phenomena. On the whole, the new approach allows us to recast the classical fluid dynamic equations into so-called quantum equations. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.