Coupling of rotating water jets by surface waves

F. Giorgiutti (1) , L. Laurent (1) , F. Daviaud (2, 1)

1 SPEC - UMR3680 - Service de physique de l'état condensé
2 SPHYNX - Systèmes Physiques Hors-équilibre, hYdrodynamique, éNergie et compleXes

Above a critical flow rate, a single jet impinging from below on a water-air interface oscillates while arrays of jets exhibit collective behaviors. The aim of the paper is to explain the physics governing such an array. First, a series of experiments shows that the instability mechanism leading to the oscillation of a single jet is due to a feedback effect between surface distortion and the unstable jet as in the ''jet-edge'' system and that several jets are coupled through surface waves. Then a modelization is proposed in which jets are considered as oscillators close to their limit cycle coupled by delayed action to take into account the wave propagation. A good agreement is obtained between the predictions of the model and experiments on sets of two or four jets. The long range of the surface waves and the large number of oscillators render this jet configuration very similar to idealized phase coupled nonlinear oscillators investigated in theoretical models but with a not instantaneous coupling ensured by traveling waves. This allows in particular the existence of various synchronization modes, which appear as geometrical patterns

Domaines: Physique [physics]

F. Giorgiutti, L. Laurent, F. Daviaud. Coupling of rotating water jets by surface waves. Physical Review E : Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics, 1998, 58, pp.512-521. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevE.58.512⟩. ⟨cea-01373943⟩