Instability and interface coupling of coaxial liquid jets in a driving stream

Abstract

The behavior of jet breakup and interface coupling in a co-flow focusing (CFF) process is studied theoretically. A physical model of coaxial liquid jets moving in an infinite annular driving stream is established, and the dimensionless dispersion relation for temporally axisymmetric perturbations is solved numerically. The effects of process parameters such as flow velocities, liquid physical properties, and radius ratio between the inner and outer jets on the jet instability are analyzed. The evolutions of interface perturbations are observed in CFF experiments, and the perturbation wavelengths under different liquid flow rates are measured in comparison with theoretical predictions. Moreover, the coupling of interface instabilities in CFF is studied through changing the radius ratio between the inner and outer liquid jets. In particular, two simplified single jet models under the assumption of minimum inner and outer liquid flow rates are proposed to reveal the transition from weak coupling to strong coupling of jet interfaces. This work provides great insight into the physical mechanism of interface instability in CFF advantageous for producing monodisperse microdroplets with fine robustness and high throughput.