Formation of Twisted Liquid Jets

Abstract: Liquid jets issued from a non-circular orifice exhibit oscillation owing to the surface tension. When the orifice has an $n$-fold rotational symmetry, a material cross section of the jet interchanges two symmetric shapes alternately. This oscillation, called axis switching, is a superposition of two ripples oppositely propagating in the azimuthal direction around the axis. In this study, we used computer simulations to demonstrate that we can pick up one of the two ripples by adjusting the initial velocity profile of the orifice. As a result of the single wave propagation in the azimuth, the jet surface shows a twisted appearance. In contrast to the swirling jets, the twisted jet has no angular momentum around the axis. We numerically demonstrated the formation of twisted jets with various cross sections, including a regular square.