Analytical description of the breakup of liquid jets

Abstract

A viscous or inviscid cylindrical jet with surface tension in a surrounding medium of negligible density tends to pinch owing to the mechanism of capillary instability. We construct similarity solutions which describe this phenomenon as a critical time is encountered, for three distinct cases: (i) inviscid jets governed by the Euler equations, (ii) highly viscous jets governed by the Stokes equations, and (iii) viscous jets governed by the Navier-Stokes equations. We look for singular solutions of the governing equations directly rather than by analysis of simplified models arising from slender-jet theories. For Stokes jets implicitly defined closed-form solutions are constructed which allow the scaling exponents to be fixed. Navier-Stokes pinching solutions follow rationally from the Stokes ones by bringing unsteady and nonlinear terms into the momentum equations to leading order. This balance fixes a set of universal scaling functions for the phenomenon. Finally we show how the pinching solutions can be used to provide an analytical description of the dynamics beyond breakup.