The effects of fluctuating body forces on annular liquid jets

Summary The nonlinear dynamics of axisymmetric, inviscid, incompressible, thin, annular liquid jets subjected to fluctuating body forces is studied numerically by means of an adaptive finite difference method which maps the time-dependent, curvilinear geometry of the jet into a unit square. The fluctuating body forces may arise from fluctuations in the gravitational acceleration in inertial frames or from the acceleration of a non-inertial frame of reference which translates parallelly to an inertial one. It is shown that both the pressure coefficient and the axial location at which the annular jet becomes a solid one are periodic functions of time with a period equal to that of the imposed body force fluctuations, and that their magnitude increases as the amplitude of the body force fluctuations is increased. It has also been shown that, for both intermittent, sinusoidal or rectangular excitations, increases in the frequency of the excitation result in the creation of superharmonics, broad, albeit peaked, spectra, and closed phase planes with many loops.The research reported in this paper was supported by Project PB91-0767 from the D.G.I.C.Y.T. of Spain.