A sufficient criterion for Rayleigh-Taylor instability of incompressible viscous three layer-flow (Q1197207)

The authors have attempted to extend the famous work of \textit{S. Chandrasekhar} [Hydrodynamic and hydromagnetic stability (1961; Zbl 0142.441)] on two-layer incompressible viscous fluids to three-layer fluids. Using a normal mode analysis, Rayleigh-Taylor instability is investigated for three layer viscous stratified incompressible steady flow, when the top 3rd and the bottom 1st layers extend up to infinity, whereas the middle layer has a small thickness. Among the results obtained, it is observed that the equality of the coefficients of viscosity of the 2nd and the 3rd layers can inhibit the effect of surface tension completely.