Superstability of micrometer viscous jets surrounded by weakly-elastic viscous shells
Abstract
Our experiments demonstrate the strong stabilizing effect of a viscoelastic shell on flow-focused viscous jets. The results suggest that stabilization occurs when the polymer viscosity, ηp, exceeds a critical threshold, provided the extensional relaxation time, λ, is large enough to allow the polymer molecules to undergo the coil-stretch transition. Under these conditions, substantial extensional viscoelastic stresses develop as the liquid accelerates. Since both ηp and λ increase with shell viscosity, the polymer concentration required to stabilize the viscous jet decreases accordingly. Remarkably, moderately to highly viscous jets can be stabilized with very small polymer concentrations, for which no beads-on-a-string (BOAS) instability is observed.
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BibTeX
@misc{rubiogonzalez2026superstability,
title = {{Superstability of micrometer viscous jets surrounded by weakly-elastic viscous shells}},
author = {A. Rubio-González and D. Fernández-Martínez and M. Vakili and J. M. Montanero},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.26150},
eprint = {2610.26150},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.26150},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Superstability of micrometer viscous jets surrounded by weakly-elastic viscous shells
AU - A. Rubio-González
AU - D. Fernández-Martínez
AU - M. Vakili
AU - J. M. Montanero
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/19
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.26150
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.26150
AB - Our experiments demonstrate the strong stabilizing effect of a viscoelastic shell on flow-focused viscous jets. The results suggest that stabilization occurs when the polymer viscosity, η_p, exceeds a critical threshold, provided the extensional relaxation time, λ, is large enough to allow the polymer molecules to undergo the coil-stretch transition. Under these conditions, substantial extensional viscoelastic stresses develop as the liquid accelerates. Since both η_p and λ increase with shell viscosity, the polymer concentration required to stabilize the viscous jet decreases accordingly. Remarkably, moderately to highly viscous jets can be stabilized with very small polymer concentrations, for which no beads-on-a-string (BOAS) instability is observed.
ER -