Rayleigh-Taylor instability in elastic liquids (Q1311353): Difference between revisions

The stability of an incompressible elastic fluid at rest above a free surface is studied by linear stability analysis. First, the Maxwell model is used to include elastic effects, but inertial effects are neglected. Characteristic equation for the growth rate is found showing a dimensionless critical wave number. For each fixed wave number in the region of instability this model predicts an unbounded growth rate at a certain value of the Weissenberg number. Result shows that introduction of inertial terms will smooth out this singularity. The singularity analysis is made by asymptotic expansion method.