Dynamics of nearly unstable axisymmetric liquid bridges

Abstract

The dynamics of a noncylindrical, axisymmetric, marginally unstable liquid bridge between two equal disks is analyzed in the inviscid limit. The resulting model allows for the weakly nonlinear description of both the (first stage of) breakage for unstable configurations and the (slow) dynamics for stable configurations. The analysis is made for both slender and short liquid brides. In the former range, the dynamics breaks reflection symmetry on the midplane between the supporting disks and can be described by a standard Duffing equation, while for short bridges reflection symmetry is preserved and the equation is still Duffing-like but exhibiting a quadratic nonlinearity. The asymptotic results compare well with existing experiments.