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Fluidinstabilities

The document discusses several fluid instabilities: 1) Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities occur at the boundary between two fluids flowing at different velocities and can arise when the velocity difference supplies enough kinetic energy. 2) Crow instabilities form in contrails caught in wingtip vortices, causing the contrails to break into rings when supplied with energy from turbulence. 3) Rayleigh-Bénard convection is driven by heating fluid from below, creating convection cells and instability governed by the Rayleigh number. 4) Rayleigh-Taylor and viscous fingering instabilities involve the mixing of fluids caused by density or viscosity differences supplying potential or kinetic energy.

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60 views3 pages

Fluidinstabilities

The document discusses several fluid instabilities: 1) Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities occur at the boundary between two fluids flowing at different velocities and can arise when the velocity difference supplies enough kinetic energy. 2) Crow instabilities form in contrails caught in wingtip vortices, causing the contrails to break into rings when supplied with energy from turbulence. 3) Rayleigh-Bénard convection is driven by heating fluid from below, creating convection cells and instability governed by the Rayleigh number. 4) Rayleigh-Taylor and viscous fingering instabilities involve the mixing of fluids caused by density or viscosity differences supplying potential or kinetic energy.

Uploaded by

ilovemime
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Fluid Instabilities

Kelvin Hemholtz Instabilities


Kelvin Helmholtz instabilities arise when to uids are owing next to each other with dierent uid velocities. The most common place that they are seen are in wind driven water waves. L. Gramer derives the instability condition for this in his paper.[1] He found the condition to be: g(2 2 1 2 ) < k1 2 (u2 u1 )2 So when this condition is satised, the uid is unstable. His derivation is for the two uid case where 1 < 2 with a discontinuous boundary between the uids. Notice that this instability cannot arise if u1 = u2 . This reinforces the fact that the uid velocity dierence is what supplies the free energy that drives this instability. Having the lower uid be much more dense helps to minimize this instability. The larger the density dierence, the more work it takes to raise the lower uid and mix the two along the boundary. You can also see from the relation that having a large dierence in the uid velocities will make the system more unstable. Larger velocity dierences supply more kinetic energy to the system, making mixing more probable.

Crow Instabilities
Crow instabilities arise in contrails. The contrails are caught in oppositespinning vortices generated at the wing tips. When energy is supplied by turbulence, the contrails break up into a series of rings rather than two trails. The growth rate is: = 1 2 cos(kd) 1 sin(kd) + Ci(kd) k 2 d2 kd

where d is the length of the breaks and Ci is the cosine integral. [2]

Rayleigh-Bnard convection e
Rayleigh-Bnard convection occurs when a uid is heated from beneath. The e heating provides a source of free nergy. As the uid expands, it decreases in 1

density and rises, creating convection cells. This is the instability that drives lava lamps. It is governed by the Rayleigh number: RaL = g (Ttop Tbottom )L3

where is the thermal expansion coecient, is the thermal diusivity, L is the height of the container and and is the kinematic viscosity. The uid becomes unstable when RaL > 1708.

Rayleigh-Taylor instability
The Rayleigh-Taylor instability occurs when a denser uid is on top of a less dense uid. The denser uid will then fall to decrease the potential energy of the system, mixing the uids. Its growth rate is: 2 = gk light heavy light + heavy

Saman-Taylor Instability or Viscous Fingering


Viscous Fingering happens when a less viscous uid sits on a more viscous uid. It can also occur when a less viscous uid is injected into a more viscous uid. When this instability occurs, the less viscous uid mixes with the more viscous uid in a branch-like pattern. This instability occurs when: (2 1 )g + u 2 1 k2 k1 <0

where 1 denotes the upper uid and 2 denotes the lower uid. [3] The free energy is provided either through the work done to inject the uid, or through having a more dens uid above a less dens uid.

Taylor-Couette instability
The Taylor-Couette instability arises when one cylinder rotates inside another cylinder with a layer of uid between them. When the rotating cylinder rotates quickly enough, there is enough free energy in the system to create a

stable ow pattern that has vortices. That condition is met when the Taylor number is greater than some critical value. For this system, that means: T ac < 2 R1 (R2 R1 )3 2

Where is the relative angular velocity of the two cylinders. Wikipedia gives T ac 1708.

Plateau-Rayleigh instability
The Plateau-Rayleigh instability is what causes a jet to break up into beads. It is driven by the surface tension of the jet uid. It occurs when kR < 1 where R is the radius of the jet before the oscillations begin.

References
[1] Gramer, L. Kelvin-Helmhotlz Instabilities University of Miami, 2007 (Unpublished). [2] Feuerlein, J. Hydrodynamic Instability in the Flow Over a Forward-Facing Step Institute of Fluid Dynamics ETH Zurich (Unpublished). [3] Mei, C.C. Notes on1.63 Advanced Environmental Fluid Mechanics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2002 (Unpublished).

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