Jr. Debruyn, CROSSOVER BETWEEN SURFACE-TENSION AND GRAVITY-DRIVEN INSTABILITIES OFA THIN FLUID LAYER ON A HORIZONTAL CYLINDER, Physics of fluids, 9(6), 1997, pp. 1599-1605
A thin annular layer of fluid coating a cylinder is subject to two dif
ferent instabilities. One, driven by surface tension, is analogous to
the Rayleigh instability of a liquid jet. The other is the Rayleigh-Ta
ylor instability, which is driven by gravity. Measurements of the wave
length and growth rate of periodic patterns of droplets which develop
as a result of the instability of such a fluid layer are reported for
cylinders with radius r in the range 0.0011 < r < 1.27 cm. For small r
the wavelength and growth rate of the pattern are in agreement with t
heoretical predictions for the surface-tension-driven instability. For
large r, the Rayleigh-Taylor instability is observed. At intermediate
r there is a region of crossover between the two limiting cases. (C)
1997 American Institute of Physics.