Stability of oscillatory two-phase Couette flow

The authors investigate the stability of two-phase Couette flowof different liquids bounded between plane parallel plates.One of the plates has a time-dependent velocity in its own plane,which is composed of a constant steady part and a time-harmoniccomponent. In the absence of time-harmonic modulations, theflow can be unstable to an interfacial instability if the viscositiesare different, and the more viscous fluid occupies the thinnerof the two layers. Using Floquet theory, it is shown analyticallyin the limit of long waves that time-periodic modulations inthe basic flow can have a significant influence on flow stability.In particular, flows which are otherwise unstable for extensiveranges of viscosity ratios can be stabilized completely by theinclusion of background modulations, a finding that can haveuseful consequences in many practical applications.