Investigation of nonlinear waves on liquid jets

The breakup of a liquid jet subject to a small sinusoidal disturbance is studied using a sensitive, high-resolution optical probe technique that generates an electrical signal proportional to the local jet diameter. This signal is resolved into its harmonic components which are measured as a function of distance along the jet axis. Measurements of the growth along the axis of the fundamental and first two harmonic components are compared with calculations based on the nonlinear analysis of Yuen. Excellent agreement is found for cases where the harmonic components lie both inside and outside the bandpass of the instability as described by the linearized theory. Copyright © 1976 American Institute of Physics.