Capillary instability of a rotating viscous hollow jet (original) (raw)

Capillary instability of an annular liquid jet

Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 1987

An analytical investigation of the stability of a viscous, annular liquid jet moving in an inviscid medium is presented. This problem is a generalization of the well-known cases of a round cylindrical jet (obtained here when the ratio of internal to external radii tends to zero) and the flat thin liquid sheet (when the ratio above tends to unity).

Influence of viscosity on the capillary instability of a stretching jet

Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 1987

The hydrodynamic stability of a rapidly elongating, viscous liquid jet such as obtained in shaped charges is presented. The flow field depends on three characteristic timescales associated with the growth of perturbations (due esaentially to the effect of the surface tension), the elongation of the jet, and the inward diffusion of vorticity from the free surface, respectively. The latter process introduces a time lag resulting in the current values of the free-surface perturbation and its time derivative being a function of their past history. Solutions of the integro-differential equation for the evolution of disturbances exhibit a novel dual role played by the viscosity : besides the traditional damping effect it is associated with a destabilizing mechanism in the elongating jet. The wavelength of maximum instability is also a function of time elapsed since the jet formation, longer wavelengths becoming dominant at later stages. Understanding of these instability processes can help in both promoting and delaying instability as required by specific applications.

The stability of viscous liquid jets in a swirling gas

Acta Mechanica Sinica, 1998

Based on the linear analysis of stability, a dispersion equation is deduced which delineates the evolution of a general 3-dimensional disturbance on the free surface of an incompressible viscous liquid jet injected into a gas with swirl. Here, the dimensionless parameter Je is again introduced, in the meantime, another dimensionless parameter E called as circulation is also introduced to represent the relative swirling intensity. With respect to the spatial growing disturbance mode, the numerical results obtained from solving the dispersion equation reveal the following facts. First, at the same value of E, in pace with the changing of Je, the variation of disturbance and the critical disturbance mode still keep the same characters. Second, the present results are the same as that of S.P. Lin when Jr > 1; but in the range of Je < 1, it's no more the case, the swirl decreases the axisymmetric disturbance, yet increases the asymmetric disturbance, furthermore the swirl may make the character of the most unstable disturbance mode changed (axisymraetric or asymmetric); the above action of the swirl becomes much stronger when J~ <( 1.

Instability of elliptic liquid jets: Temporal linear stability theory and experimental analysis

Physics of Fluids, 2014

The instability dynamics of inviscid liquid jets issuing from elliptical orifices is studied, and effects of the surrounding gas and the liquid surface tension on the stability behavior are investigated. A dispersion relation for the zeroth azimuthal (axisymmetric) instability mode is derived. Consistency of the analysis is confirmed by demonstrating that these equations reduce to the well-known dispersion equations for the limiting cases of round and planar jets. It is shown that the effect of the ellipticity is to increase the growth rate over a large range of wavenumbers in comparison to those of a circular jet. For higher Weber numbers, at which capillary forces have a stabilizing effect, the growth rate decreases with increasing ellipticity. Similar to circular and planar jets, increasing the density ratio between gas and liquid increases the growth of disturbances significantly. These theoretical investigations are complemented by experiments to validate the local linear stability results. Comparisons of predicted growth rates with measurements over a range of jet ellipticities confirm that the theoretical model provides a quantitatively accurate description of the instability dynamics in the Rayleigh and first wind-induced regimes.

Instability of viscoelastic curved liquid jets

Applied Mathematical Modelling, 2014

The industrial prilling process is a common technique to produce small pellets which are generated from the break-up of rotating liquid jets. In many cases the fluids used are molten liquid and/or contain small quantities of polymers and thus typically can be modelled as non-Newtonian liquids. Industrial scale setups are costly to run and thus mathematical modelling provides an opportunity to assess methods of improving efficiency and introduces greater levels of precision. In order to understand this process, we will consider a mathematical model to capture the essential physics related to a cylindrical drum, which is rotated about its axis. In this paper, we will model the viscoelastic nature of the fluid using the Oldroyd-B model. An asymptotic approach is used to simplify the governing equations into 1D equations. Moreover, a linear instability analysis is examined and the most unstable modes are found to grow along the jet. Furthermore, the non-linear instability is investigated by using a finite difference scheme to find break-up lengths and droplet formation.

Elliptic instability of a stratified fluid in a rotating cylinder

Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 2010

In this paper, we analyse the characteristics of the elliptic instability in a finite cylinder in the presence of both background rotation and axial stratification. A general formula for the linear growth rate of the stationary sinuous modes is derived including viscous and detuning effects in the limit of small eccentricity. This formula is discussed and compared to experimental results which are obtained in a cylinder filled with salted water for two different eccentricities by varying the stratification, the background rotation and the cylinder rotation. A good agreement with the theory concerning the domain of instability of the sinuous modes is demonstrated. Other elliptic instability modes, oscillating at the cylinder angular frequency are also evidenced together with a new type of instability mode, which could be connected to a centrifugal instability occurring during the experimental phase of spin-up. The nonlinear regime of the elliptic instability is also documented. In contrast with the homogeneous case, no cycle involving growth, breakdown and re-laminarization is observed in the presence of strong stratification. The elliptic instability in a stratified fluid seems to yield either a persistent turbulent state or a weakly nonlinear regime.

Instability of a viscoelastic liquid jet with axisymmetric and asymmetric disturbances

International Journal of Multiphase Flow, 2008

The temporal instability behavior of a viscoelastic liquid jet in the wind-induced regime with axisymmetric and asymmetric disturbances moving in an inviscid gaseous environment is investigated theoretically. The corresponding dispersion relation between the wave growth rate and the wavenumber is derived. The linear instability analysis shows that viscoelastic liquid jets are more unstable than their Newtonian counterparts, and less unstable than their inviscid counterparts, for both axisymmetric and asymmetric disturbances, respectively. The instability behavior of viscoelastic jets is influenced by the interaction of liquid viscosity and elasticity, in which the viscosity tends to dampen the instability, whereas the elasticity results in an enhancement of instability. Relatively, the effect of the ratio of deformation retardation to stress relaxation time on the instability of viscoelastic jets is weak. It is found that the liquid Weber number is a key measure that controls the viscoelastic jet instability behavior. At small Weber number, the axisymmetric disturbance dominates the instability of viscoelastic jets, i.e., the growth rate of an axisymmetric disturbance exceeds that of asymmetric disturbances. When the Weber number increases, both the growth rate and the instability range of disturbances increase drastically. The asymptotic analysis shows that at large Weber number, more asymmetric disturbance modes become unstable, and the growth rate of each asymmetric disturbance mode approaches that of the axisymmetric disturbance. Therefore, the asymmetric disturbances are more dangerous than that of axisymmetric disturbances for a viscoelastic jet at large Weber numbers. Similar to the liquid Weber number, the ratio of gas to liquid density is another key measure that affects the viscoelastic jet instability behavior substantially.

Unforced Rayleigh instability of an immersed liquid jet

E3S Web of Conferences

Motivated by the occurrence of the injection of liquids in various technical processes, we study the capillary instability of a liquid jet surrounded by another liquid. The study focuses on the natural developing Rayleigh instability, hence without an imposed perturbation. We also point out the influence of viscosity on the main drop diameter, resulted after jet breakup, and on the breakup length itself. Modifications brought by a decrease of the capillary nozzle are also emphasized for a particular case.

Stability of the boundary layer flow on a long thin rotating cylinder

Physics of Fluids, 2008

The development and stability of the boundary layer flow over a long thin cylinder aligned with the main flow and which rotates around its axis is considered. Numerical results show that the introduction of rotation has an important effect on the behavior of the basic flow. When the swirl increases, the shear stress at the wall also increases due to the changes in the pressure distribution along the cylinder surface. A nonparallel linear stability analysis of the basic flow is performed using parabolized stability equations. Even at moderately low rotation, we find the existence of unstable centrifugal modes, in addition to the shear ones found in previous stability analysis of the boundary layer flow on a cylinder with no rotation. These centrifugal instabilities develop at Reynolds numbers, based on the cylinder radius and external axial velocity, much smaller than those required for the growing of the shear instabilities. Our analysis shows that nonparallel effects play a key role in the onset and development of these instabilities, being the spiral mode with azimuthal wavenumber n = 1, the first to become unstable as the Reynolds number is increased in most cases of interest. We characterize the critical Reynolds number for convective instability as a function of the axial distance to the leading edge for several values of the swirl parameter.