Influence of slip on the Plateau-Rayleigh instability on a fibre.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 26068033.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms8409 and PMC identifier 4490368.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
The Plateau-Rayleigh instability of a liquid column underlies a variety of fascinating phenomena that can be observed in everyday life. In contrast to the case of a free liquid cylinder, describing the evolution of a liquid layer on a solid fibre requires consideration of the solid-liquid interface. Here we revisit the Plateau-Rayleigh instability of a liquid coating a fibre by varying the hydrodynamic boundary condition at the fibre-liquid interface, from no slip to slip. Although the wavelength is not sensitive to the solid-liquid interface, we find that the growth rate of the undulations strongly depends on the hydrodynamic boundary condition. The experiments are in excellent agreement with a new thin-film theory incorporating slip, thus providing an original, quantitative and robust tool to measure slip lengths.