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Updated: Nov 6, 2025
06:42
Magnetically Induced Rotating Rayleigh-Taylor Instability
Published on: March 3, 2017
9.8K
Elastic Rayleigh-Plateau instability: dynamical selection of nonlinear states
Anupam Pandey1, Minkush Kansal, Miguel A Herrada
1Physics of Fluids Group, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500AE Enschede, The Netherlands.
Soft Matter
|May 5, 2021
Summary
Elastic hydrogel threads exhibit surface instability, forming distinct patterns like beads-on-a-string due to competing forces. Softer materials show pattern coexistence, with dynamics selecting the final morphology.
Area of Science:
- Soft Matter Physics
- Materials Science
- Fluid Dynamics
Background:
- Elastic hydrogels can exhibit surface instabilities, analogous to liquid jet instabilities.
- The interplay of capillary forces and large elastic deformations governs the final morphology of these threads.
Purpose of the Study:
- To map the phase space of possible morphologies for an elastic cylinder under capillary forces.
- To investigate the coexistence of different configurations in softer elastic cylinders.
- To understand the dynamic selection of patterns and their characteristic wavelengths.
Main Methods:
- Slender analysis of elastic cylinder instability.
- Fully three-dimensional numerical simulations.
- Computation of dispersion relations to determine characteristic wavelengths.
Main Results:
- A phase map of morphologies for neo-Hookean cylinders under capillary forces was generated.
- Coexistence of "cylinders-on-a-string" and "beads-on-a-string" morphologies was observed for softer cylinders.
- Dynamical evolution was shown to select the final pattern, with characteristic wavelengths identified.
Conclusions:
- The study provides a comprehensive understanding of pattern formation in elastic hydrogel threads.
- Results are consistent across theoretical analysis, numerical simulations, and experimental observations.
- This work contributes to the field of soft matter physics and material design.
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