The Break-up of Viscoelastic Jets and Filaments: The Beads-on-a-string Structure – Marie-Charlotte Renoult

Date: Mon. December 1st, 2014, 12:30 pm-1:30 pm
Location: Rockefeller 221

Capillary pressure can destabilize a thin stream of water and break it up into a succession of small droplets. The addition of a minute quantity (some part per million) of a long, flexible and water-soluble polymer is enough to modify the growth and morphology of this instability and leads, close to breakup, to the development of Beads-on-a-string structures (BOAS) where droplets are connected by thin threads. The BOAS phenomenon is also observed after stretching a bridge of a viscoelastic liquid.

Experiments on jets and stretched bridges of viscoelastic polymeric solutions were conducted to gain more insight into the formation and time evolution of the BOAS in both configurations.