Static rivulet instabilities: varicose and sinuous modes

A static rivulet is subject to disturbances in shape, velocity and pressure fields. Disturbances to interfacial shape accommodate a contact line that is either (i) fixed (pinned) or (ii) fully mobile (free) and preserves the static contact angle. The governing hydrodynamic equations for this inviscid, incompressible fluid are derived and then reduced to a functional eigenvalue problem on linear operators, which are parametrized by axial wavenumber and base-state volume. Solutions are decomposed according to their symmetry (varicose) or anti-symmetry (sinuous) about the vertical mid-plane. Dispersion relations are then computed. Static stability is obtained by setting growth rate to zero and recovers existing literature results. Critical growth rates and wavenumbers for the varicose and sinuous modes are reported. For the varicose mode, typical capillary break-up persists and the role of the liquid/solid interaction on the critical disturbance is illustrated. There exists a range of parameters for which the sinuous mode is the dominant instability mode. The sinuous instability mechanism is shown to correlate with horizontal centre-of-mass motion and illustrated using a toy model.