Temporal instability of coflowing liquid-gas jets under an electric field

Abstract

Temporal instability of an electrified liquid jet in the core of a high-speed gas stream is studied to better understand the electro-flow focusing (EFF) technique. Two types of physical models with and without viscosities of fluids are considered. One utilizes uniform basic flow and an axial electric field, while the other one considers both the axial and radial electric fields and employs appropriate velocity profiles based on the pipe flow for inner liquid and the error function for outer gas stream. Both models demonstrate that the axisymmetric instability and the helical instability are two most unstable modes in the EFF problem. The significance of free charge initially imposed on the interface is highlighted and the effects of surface tension and liquid viscosity on the jet instability are also studied. It is shown that the increase of free charge density can definitely promote both the axisymmetric and helical instabilities and the transition between them arises for sufficiently large free charge densities when the axial electric field intensity increases. Finally, the EFF experiments are carried out to compare with theoretical predictions in the temporal instability analysis and a good agreement between them is achieved.