Absolute Instability of a Liquid Jet in a Coflowing Stream

Andrew S. Utada, Alberto Fernandez-Nieves, Jose M. Gordillo, and David A. Weitz
Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 014502 – Published 11 January 2008
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Abstract

Cylindrical liquid jets are inherently unstable and eventually break into drops due to the Rayleigh-Plateau instability, characterized by the growth of disturbances that are either convective or absolute in nature. Convective instabilities grow in amplitude as they are swept along by the flow, while absolute instabilities are disturbances that grow at a fixed spatial location. Liquid jets are nearly always convectively unstable. Here we show that two-phase jets can breakup due to an absolute instability that depends on the capillary number of the outer liquid, provided the Weber number of the inner liquid is >O(1). We verify our experimental observations with a linear stability analysis.

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  • Received 13 July 2007

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.014502

©2008 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Andrew S. Utada1, Alberto Fernandez-Nieves1,*, Jose M. Gordillo2, and David A. Weitz1,3,†

  • 1School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
  • 2Área de Mecánica de Fluidos, Departamento de Ingeniería Energética y Mecánica de Fluidos, Universidad de Sevilla, Avenida de los Descubrimientos s/n 41092 Sevilla, Spain
  • 3The Physics Department, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA

  • *Present address: School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta GA, 30332, USA.
  • weitz@seas.harvard.edu

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Issue

Vol. 100, Iss. 1 — 11 January 2008

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