Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 7, 2026

Cryogenic Liquid Jets for High Repetition Rate Discovery Science
Published on: May 9, 2020
Absolute instability of a liquid jet in a coflowing stream
Andrew S Utada1, Alberto Fernandez-Nieves, Jose M Gordillo
1School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
Abstract:
Cylindrical liquid jets are inherently unstable and eventually break into drops due to the Rayleigh-Plateau instability, characterized by the growth of disturbances that are either convective or absolute in nature. Convective instabilities grow in amplitude as they are swept along by the flow, while absolute instabilities are disturbances that grow at a fixed spatial location. Liquid jets are nearly always convectively unstable. Here we show that two-phase jets can breakup due to an absolute instability that depends on the capillary number of the outer liquid, provided the Weber number of the inner liquid is >O(1). We verify our experimental observations with a linear stability analysis.
Related Concept Videos
Free Jet
Steady Flow of a Fluid Stream
During this process, the momentum of the fluid within the control volume remains constant over the time interval dt. By applying the...
Bernoulli's Equation for Flow Along a Streamline
Irrotational Flow
Steady, Laminar Flow in Circular Tubes
Bernoulli's Equation for Flow Normal to a Streamline
The pressure difference depends on the fluid's velocity and radius of curvature. The pressure variation is minimal in flows with nearly straight streamlines. However, the...

