The instability of the thin vortex ring of constant vorticity

Abstract

A theoretical investigation of the instability of a vortex ring to short azimuthal bending waves is presented. The theory considers only the stability of a thin vortex ring with a core of constant vorticity (constant /r) in an ideal fluid. Both the mean flow and the disturbance flow are found as an asymptotic solution in e = a /R, the ratio of core radius to ring radius. Only terms linear in wave amplitude are retained in the stability analysis. The solution to 0 (e 2 ) is presented, although the details of the stability analysis are carried through completely only for a special class of bending waves that are known to be unstable on a line filament in the presence of strain (Tsai & Widnall 1976) and have been identified in the simple model of Widnall, Bliss & Tsai (1974) as a likely mode of instability for the vortex ring: these occur at certain critical wavenumbers for which waves on a line filament of the same vorticity distribution would not rotate (w 0 = 0). The ring is found to be always unstable for at least the lowest two critical wavenumbers ( ka = 2.5 and 4.35). The amplification rate and wavenumber predicted by the theory are found to be in good agreement with available experimental results.