67th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics (November 23, 2014 — November 25, 2014)

V0038: Faraday instability in floating drops

Authors

• Giuseppe Pucci, Matière et Systèmes Complexes, Université Paris Diderot, CNRS UMR 7057, 10 rue Alice Domon et Léonie Duquet, 75205 Paris, France
• Martine Ben Amar, Laboratoire de Physique Statistique, Ecole Normale Supérieure, UPMC Univ Paris 06, Université Paris Diderot, CNRS, 24 rue Lhomond, 75005 Paris, France
• Yves Couder, Matière et Systèmes Complexes, Université Paris Diderot, CNRS UMR 7057, 10 rue Alice Domon et Léonie Duquet, 75205 Paris, France

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/APS.DFD.2014.GFM.V0038

Faraday instability in floating drops

In 1831, Michael Faraday discovered that a liquid undergoing vertical vibration is unstable to surface waves. We show the Faraday instability in floating liquid drops, as an example of hydrodynamic instability that develops in a domain with flexible boundaries.  A surprising mutual adaptation between the waves and the drop's boundary occurs, as a result of the competition between the wave radiation pressure and the capillary response of the drop's border. Two types of behaviour are observed. In the first, stable drop shapes are obtained experimentally and they result from the equilibrium between wave radiation pressure and capillary pressure. In the second, the radiation pressure exceeds the capillary response of the drop's border and leads to non-equilibrium behaviours, with breaking into smaller drops that have a complex dynamics including spontaneous propagation.

 

Physics of Fluids summary