FORCE FIELDS ON INVISCID,SLENDER, ANNULAR LIQUID JETS

Regular perturbation expansions are used to analyse the fluid dynamics of unsteady, inviscid, slender, thin, incompressible (constant density), axisymmetric, upward and downward, annular liquid jets subjected to non-homogeneous, conservative body forces when both the annular jets are very thin and the gases enclosed by and surrounding the jet are dynamically passive. Both inertia- and capillarity-dominated annular jets are considered. It is shown that, for inertia-dominated jets, closure of the leading-order equations is achieved at second order in the perturbation parameter, which is the slenderness ratio, whereas closure is achieved at first order for capillarity-dominated jets. The steady leading-order equations are solved numerically by means of both an adaptive finite difference method which maps the curvilinear geometry of the jet onto a unit square and a fourth-order-accurate Runge–Kutta technique. It is shown that the fluid dynamics of steady, annular liquid jets is very sensitive to the Froude and Weber numbers and nozzle exit angle in the presence of non-homogeneous, conservative body forces. For upward jets with inwardly or axially directed velocities at the nozzle exit the effect of the non-homogeneous, conservative body forces is to increase the leading-order axial velocity component, decrease the jet's mean radius and move the stagnation point downstream. For downward jets with radially outward velocity at the nozzle exit the axial velocity component decreases monotonically as the magnitude of the non-homogeneous, conservative body forces is increased.