Instability of a compound liquid jet

Abstract

In the linear Rayleigh theory [1] the degree of stability of a jet is determined by the viscosity and inertia characteristics of the fluids and the interphase surface tension. The stability of a jet in an infinite medium increases with increase in the viscosity of both the jet and the medium [2, 3]. The presence of two interfaces is responsible for various features of the development of instability in a liquid layer on the surface of a cylinder, and in particular a layer on the inner surface of a cylinder is more unstable than one on the outer surface [4]. In [5, 6] the breakup of a hollow jet in an external medium was investigated. In this paper we examine, in the linear approximation, the stability of a compound jet of nonmiscible liquids with respect to small axisynmetric perturbations of the interfaces. The instability characteristics are given for jets with inviscid and very viscous outer shells. The conditions governing the suppression of rapidly growing instabilities of the inner part (core) of the jet by a viscous shell are determined.