Abstract: By using stability analysis, it is shown that a spherical drop can be resonated parametrically to initiate the formation of droplets of diameters much smaller than that of the original drop. Both the surface tension and the density of the surrounding gas tend to retard this atomization process. The interfacial instability associated with the D'Alembert apparent body force in two superposed flat fluid layers is shown to be closely related to the interfacial instability caused by parametric resonance.

Key words: atomization, instability, parametric resonance