Experiments on water drop interactions

A series of experiments is described which demonstrate the interactions of water drops. These experiments were used in a project with second year undergraduates and should be easy to adapt for school use. Photographic, stroboscopic and droplet stream formation techniques are used. Droplet-droplet collisions and collisions with plane and curved air-water interfaces are involved. It is considered that the experiments provide a good basis for the understanding of the relative roles of kinetic energy and surface energy in governing water droplet behaviour.