Dynamics of liquid rope coiling

We present a combined experimental and numerical investigation of the coiling of a liquid "rope" falling on a solid surface, focusing on three little-explored aspects of the phenomenon: The time dependence of "inertio-gravitational" coiling, the systematic dependence of the radii of the coil and the rope on the experimental parameters, and the "secondary buckling" of the columnar structure generated by high-frequency coiling. Inertio-gravitational coiling is characterized by oscillations between states with different frequencies, and we present experimental observations of four distinct branches of such states in the frequency-fall height space. The transitions between coexisting states have no characteristic period, may take place with or without a change in the sense of rotation, and usually (but not always) occur via an intermediate "figure of eight" state. We present extensive laboratory measurements of the radii of the coil and of the rope within it, and show that they agree well with the predictions of a "slender-rope" numerical model. Finally, we use dimensional analysis to reveal a systematic variation of the critical column height for secondary buckling as a function of (dimensionless) flow rate and surface tension parameters. © 2006 The American Physical Society