Buckling of Viscous Filaments of a Fluid under Compression Stresses

Marie Le Merrer (1, 2, 3) , David Quéré (1, 2) , Christophe Clanet (1, 2)

1 LadHyX - Laboratoire d'hydrodynamique
2 PMMH - Physique et mécanique des milieux hétérogenes (UMR 7636)
3 INSP - Institut des Nanosciences de Paris

We study the compression of viscous filaments at constant velocity. If slender enough, the filament bends, a viscous analogue of Euler elastic buckling. We measure the characteristic time of this viscous buckling and discuss the link with the elastic critical compression. We show that the analogy only holds in the limit of large capillary numbers. Otherwise capillarity has a stabilizing effect, which suppresses buckling.

Domains: Physics [physics]; Mechanics [physics]; Fluid mechanics [physics.class-ph]; Engineering Sciences [physics]; Mechanics [physics.med-ph]; Fluids mechanics [physics.class-ph]

Marie Le Merrer, David Quéré, Christophe Clanet. Buckling of Viscous Filaments of a Fluid under Compression Stresses. Physical Review Letters, 2012, 109 (6), pp.064502. ⟨10.1103/physrevlett.109.064502⟩. ⟨hal-00996501⟩