New experimental results describing the breakup of drops suddenly subj
ected to shearing forces sufficient to cause drop breakup are presente
d The experiments examine fluids which are immiscible and Newtonian un
der the conditions studied: These results and of her breakup mechanism
results are then discussed in the context of combining them with kine
matic information on more complex flows in order to predict drop size
distributions in processing flows. By analyzing the time scales of var
ious breakage mechanisms studied in simple shear flow and comparing th
em to the appropriate time scales in more complex flows, the relevant
importance of a given mechanism in determining the daughter drop size
distribution is predicted This type of time scale analysis is performe
d for flow in a cavity and flow in an extruder.