The nonlinear dynamics of the free surface of an ideal dielectric liquid in a strong electric field is studied. The equation for the evolution of surface electrohydrodynamic waves is derived in the approximation of small surface-slope angles. It is established that the equation can be solved for liquids with sufficiently high values of the permittivity. This makes it possible to describe the interaction of the counter-propagating waves.
Nonlinear dynamics of the free surface of finite depth non-conducting fluid with high dielectric constant subjected to a strong horizontal electric field is considered. Using the conformal transformation of the region occupied by the fluid into a strip, the process of counter-propagating waves interaction is numerically simulated. The nonlinear solitary waves on the surface can separately propagate along or against the direction of electric field without distortion. At the same time, the shape of the oppositely traveling waves can be distorted as the result of their interaction. In the problem under study, the nonlinearity leads to increasing the waves amplitudes and the duration of their interaction. This effect is inversely proportional to the fluid depth. In the shallow water limit, the tendency to the formation of a vertical liquid jet is observed.
The nonlinear dynamics of the free surface of an ideal conducting liquid in a strong external electric field is studied. It is establish that the equations of motion for such a liquid can be solved in the approximation in which the surface deviates from a plane by small angles. This makes it possible to show that on an initially smooth surface for almost any initial conditions points with an infinite curvature corresponding to branch points of the root type can form in a finite time.
The evolution of the interface between two ideal dielectric liquids in a strong vertical electric field is studied. It is found that a particular flow regime, for which the velocity potential and the electric field potential are linearly dependent functions, is possible if the ratio of the permittivities of liquids is inversely proportional to the ratio of their densities. The corresponding reduced equations for interface motion are derived. In the limit of small density ratio, these equations coincide with the well-known equations describing the Laplacian growth.
Liquid drops and vibrations are ubiquitous in both everyday life and technology, and their combination can often result in fascinating physical phenomena opening up intriguing opportunities for practical applications in biology, medicine, chemistry and photonics. Here we study, theoretically and experimentally, the response of pancake-shaped liquid drops supported by a solid plate that vertically vibrates at a single, low acoustic range frequency. When the vibration amplitudes are small, the primary response of the drop is harmonic at the frequency of the vibration. However, as the amplitude increases, the half-frequency subharmonic Faraday waves are excited parametrically on the drop surface. We develop a simple hydrodynamic model of a one-dimensional liquid drop to analytically determine the amplitudes of the harmonic and the first superharmonic components of the linear response of the drop. In the nonlinear regime, our numerical analysis reveals an intriguing cascade of instabilities leading to the onset of subharmonic Faraday waves, their modulation instability and chaotic regimes with broadband power spectra. We show that the nonlinear response is highly sensitive to the ratio of the drop size and Faraday wavelength. The primary bifurcation of the harmonic waves is shown to be dominated by a period-doubling bifurcation, when the drop height is comparable with the width of the viscous boundary layer. Experimental results conducted using low-viscosity ethanol and high-viscocity canola oil drops vibrated at 70 Hz are in qualitative agreement with the predictions of our modelling.
The formation dynamics is studied for a singular profile of a surface of an ideal conducting fluid in an electric field. Self-similar solutions of electrohydrodynamic equations describing the fundamental process of formation of surface conic cusps with angles close to the Taylor cone angle 98.6 are obtained. The behavior of physical quantities (field strength, fluid velocity, surface curvature) near the singularity is established.