Breakup of electrified jets

Abstract

Breakup of electrified jets is important in applications as diverse as electrospraying, electroseparations and electrospray mass spectrometry. Breakup of a perfectly conducting, incompressible Newtonian liquid jet surrounded by a passive insulating gas that is stressed by a radial electric field is studied by a temporal analysis. An initially quiescent jet is subjected to axially periodic shape perturbations and the ensuing dynamics are followed numerically until pinch-off by both a three-dimensional but axisymmetric (two-dimensional) and a one-dimensional slender-jet algorithm. Results computed with these algorithms are verified against predictions from linear theory for short times. Breakup times, ratios of the sizes of the primary to satellite drops formed at pinch-off, and the Coulombic stability of these drops are reported over a wide range of electrical Bond numbers, N_E (ratio of electric to surface tension force), Ohnesorge numbers, N_Oh (ratio of viscous to surface tension force), and disturbance wavenumbers, k. Effect of surface charge on interface overturning is investigated. Furthermore, the influence of electrostatic stresses on the dynamics of pinch-off and the mechanisms of satellite drop formation is also addressed.