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Instability due to viscosity stratification

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2006

Chia-Shun Yih
Affiliation:
Department of Engineering Mechanics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Abstract

The principal aim of this paper is to show that the variation of viscosity in a fluid can cause instability. Plane Couette-Poiseuille flow of two superposed layers of fluids of different viscosities between two horizontal plates is considered, and it is found that both plane Poiseuille flow and plane Couette flow can be unstable, however small the Reynolds number is. The unstable modes are in the neighbourhood of a hidden neutral mode for the case of a single fluid, which is entirely ignored in the usual theory of hydrodynamic stability, and are brought out by the viscosity stratification.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 1967 Cambridge University Press

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