Effect of longitudinal electric field on capillary instability of a thin axisymmetric layer of liquid dielectric coating a dielectric fiber

Abstract

The flow of a viscous dielectric liquid surrounded with a gas is investigated in the process of capillary disintegration of a thin axisymmetric liquid layer on an undeformable cylindrical dielectric fiber in a uniform electric field is investigated. An asymptotic analysis of the system of equations and hydrodynamic boundary conditions written with allowance for surface ponderomotive forces is carried out for the case when the average thickness of the layer is much smaller than the radius of the fiber cross section. The problem of the transition of the liquid configuration from the state of a stationary cylindrical layer to the hydrodynamic state in the form of a regular sequence of drops is formulated. In this formulation, a nonlinear parabolic equation that describes the evolution of the local thickness of the layer on the time interval to the instant of drop formation is derived. The effect of the key parameters on the capillary instability is analyzed based on the linearized version of the resultant equation and the linearized electrostatic problem of calculating the field perturbations.