Self-focusing of thin liquid jets

Abstract

The nonlinear evolution of an initially perturbed free surface perpendicularly accelerated, or of an initially flat free surface subject to a perturbed velocity profile, gives rise to the emergence of thin spikes of fluid. We are investigating the long-time evolution of a thin inviscid jet of this kind, subject or not to a body force acting in the direction of the jet itself. A fully nonlinear theory for the long-time evolution of the jet is given. In two dimensions, the curvature of the tip scales like t 3 , where t is time, and the peak undergoes an overshoot in acceleration which evolves like t −5 . In three dimensions, the jet evolves towards an axisymmetric shape, and the curvature and the overshoot in acceleration obey asymptotic laws in t 2 and t −4 , respectively. The asymptotic self-similar shape of the spike is found to be a hyperbola in two dimensions, a hyperboloid in three dimensions. Scaling laws and self-similarity are confronted with two-dimensional computations of the Richtmyer–Meshkov instability.