Large-amplitude capillary waves in electrified fluid sheets

Large-amplitude capillary waves on fluid sheets are computed in the presence of a uniform electric field acting in a direction parallel to the undisturbed configuration. The fluid is taken to be inviscid, incompressible and non-conducting. Travelling waves of arbitrary amplitudes and wavelengths are calculated and the effect of the electric field is studied. The solutions found generalize the exact symmetric solutions of Kinnersley (1976) to include electric fields, for which no exact solutions have been found. Long-wave nonlinear waves are also constructed using asymptotic methods. The asymptotic solutions are compared with the full computations as the wavelength increases, and agreement is found to be excellent

Three-dimensional high speed drop impact onto solid surfaces at arbitrary angles

The rich structures arising from the impingement dynamics of water drops onto solid substrates at high velocities are investigated numerically. Current methodologies in the aircraft industry estimating water collection on aircraft surfaces are based on particle trajectory calculations and empirical extensions thereof in order to approximate the complex fluid-structure interactions. We perform direct numerical simulations (DNS) using the volume-of-fluid method in three dimensions, for a collection of drop sizes and impingement angles. The high speed background air flow is coupled with the motion of the liquid in the framework of oblique stagnation-point flow. Qualitative and quantitative features are studied in both pre- and post-impact stages. One-to-one comparisons are made with experimental data available from the investigations of Sor and García-Magariño (2015), while the main body of results is created using parameters relevant to flight conditions with droplet sizes in the ranges from tens to several hundreds of microns, as presented by Papadakis et al. (2004). Drop deformation, collision, coalescence and microdrop ejection and dynamics, all typically neglected or empirically modelled, are accurately accounted for. In particular, we identify new morphological features in regimes below the splashing threshold in the modelled conditions. We then expand on the variation in the number and distribution of ejected microdrops as a function of the impacting drop size beyond this threshold. The presented drop impact model addresses key questions at a fundamental level, however the conclusions of the study extend towards the advancement of understanding of water dynamics on aircraft surfaces, which has important implications in terms of compliance to aircraft safety regulations. The proposed methodology may also be utilised and extended in the context of related industrial applications involving high speed drop impact such as inkjet printing and combustion

Nonlinear Dynamics and Wall Touch-Up in Unstably Stratified Multilayer Flows in Horizontal Channels under the Action of Electric Fields

This study considers the nonlinear dynamics of stratified immiscible fluids when an electric field acts perpendicular to the direction of gravity. A particular setup is investigated in detail, namely, two stratified fluids inside a horizontal channel of infinite extent. The fluids are taken to be perfect dielectrics, and a constant horizontal field is imposed along the channel. The sharp interface separating the two fluids may or may not support surface tension, and the Rayleigh--Taylor instability is typically present when the heavier fluid is on top. A novel system of partial differential equations that describe the interfacial position and the leading order horizontal velocity in the fluid layers is studied analytically and computationally. The system is valid in the asymptotic limit of one layer being asymptotically thin compared to the second fluid layer, and as a result nonlocal electrostatic terms arise due to the multiscale nature of the physical setup. The initial value problem on spatially periodic domains is solved numerically, and it is shown that a sufficiently strong electric field can linearly stabilize the Rayleigh--Taylor instability to produce nonlinear quasi-periodic oscillations in time that are quite close to standing waves. In situations when the instability is present, the system is shown to generically evolve to touch-up singularities with the interface touching the upper wall in finite time while the leading order horizontal velocity blows up. Accurate numerical solutions allied with asymptotic analysis show that the terminal states follow self-similar structures that are different if surface tension is present or absent, but with the electric field present. In the presence of surface tension, the touch-up is found to take place with bounded interfacial gradients but unbounded curvature, with electrostatic effects relegated to higher order. If surface tension is absent, however, the electric field supports touch-up with a local cusp structure so that the interfacial gradients themselves are unbounded. The self-similar solutions are of the second kind and extensive simulations are used to extract the scaling exponents. Distinct and independent methods are described and implemented, and agreement between them is excellent

Dynamics of gravity-driven viscoelastic films on wavy walls

The linear stability and nonlinear dynamics of viscoelastic liquid films flowing down inclined surfaces with sinusoidal topography are investigated. The Oldroyd-B constitutive model is used and numerical solutions of a long-wave nonlinear evolution equation for the film thickness, introduced by Dávalos-Orozco [L. A. Dávalos-Orozco, Stability of thin viscoelastic films falling down wavy walls, Interfacial Phenom. Heat Transfer 1, 301 (2013)], provide insight into the influence of elasticity and wall topography on the nonlinear film dynamics, while Floquet analysis of the linearized evolution equation is used to study the onset of linear instability. Focusing initially on inertialess films (with zero Reynolds number), linear stability results are organized into three regimes based on the wall wavelength. For sufficiently short and sufficiently long wall wavelengths, the onset of instability is not tangibly affected by the topography. There is however an intermediate range of wavelengths where, as the wall wavelength is increased, the critical Deborah number for the onset of instability first decreases (topography is destabilizing) and then increases sufficiently for topography to be stabilizing (relative to the flat wall). Solutions to a perturbation amplitude equation indicate that the character of the instability changes substantially within this intermediate range; topography induces streamwise variations in the base-state velocity at the free surface which couple with perturbations and substantially influence the instability growth rate. Very similar trends are observed for Newtonian films and variations in the critical Reynolds number. Simulations of the full nonlinear evolution equation produce a broad range of nonlinear states including traveling waves, time-periodic waves, and chaos. Perturbations to the film generally saturate at higher amplitudes for cases with larger linear growth rates, e.g., with increasing Deborah number or for a destabilizing wall wavelength, and topography introduces finer temporal scales in the dynamics. The qualitative influences of inclination and inertia on the nonlinear dynamics are shown to be simply related to the influence of elasticity using analytical linear stability results for the flat-wall case

Physical mechanisms relevant to flow resistance in textured microchannels

Flow resistance of liquids flowing through microchannels can be reduced by replacing flat, no-slip boundaries with boundaries adjacent to longitudinal grooves containing an inert gas, resulting in apparent slip. With applications of such textured microchannels in areas such as microfluidic systems and direct liquid cooling of microelectronics, there is a need for predictive mathematical models that can be used for design and optimization. In this work, we describe a model that incorporates the physical effects of gas viscosity (interfacial shear), meniscus protrusion (into the grooves), and channel aspect ratio and show how to generate accurate solutions for the laminar flow field using Chebyshev collocation and domain decomposition numerical methods. While the coupling of these effects are often omitted from other models, we show that it plays a significant role in the behavior of such flows. We find that, for example, the presence of gas viscosity may cause meniscus protrusion to have a more negative impact on the flow rate than previously appreciated. Indeed, we show that there are channel geometries for which meniscus protrusion increases the flow rate in the absence of gas viscosity and decreases it in the presence of gas viscosity. In this work, we choose a particular definition of channel height: the distance from the base of one groove to the base of the opposite groove. Practically, such channels are used in constrained geometries and therefore are of prescribed heights consistent with this definition. This choice allows us to easily make meaningful comparisons between textured channels and no-slip channels occupying the same space