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Abstract

An object moving through a plane interface into a fluid deforms the interface in such a way that fluid from one side of the interface is entrained into the other side, a phenomenon known as Darwin's drift. We investigate this phenomenon experimentally using a disk which is started exactly at the interface of two immiscible fluids, namely, oil and water. First, we observe that due to the density difference between the two fluids the deformation of the interface is influenced by gravity and show that there exists a time window of universal behavior. Second, we show by comparing with boundary integral simulations that, even though the deformation is universal, our results cannot be fully explained by potential flow solutions. We attribute this difference to the starting vortex, which is created in the wake of the disk. Besides contributing significantly to entrainment directly, the vortex also influences the interface deformation due to Darwin's drift. Universal behavior is preserved, however, because the size and strength of the vortex shows the same universality as the potential flow solution.