Computations of form and stability of rotating drops with finite elements

作者：Claus-Justus Heine · 发表于：IMA Journal of Numerical Analysis · 年份：2006 · DOI：10.1093/imanum/drl007 · 被引用次数：39 · 研究领域：Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer、Modular Robots and Swarm Intelligence、Micro and Nano Robotics

We consider the numerical computation of equilibrium shapes of rotating drops and their bifurcations, depending on the angular velocity. The drops are subject to centrifugal forces and surface tension alone. We present a path-tracking algorithm which is based on the discretisation of a continuously formulated Newton's iteration. Our algorithm uses parametric finite elements and avoids artificial symmetry assumptions. The results of our numerical experiments extend those published by Brown & Scriven (1980, The shape and stability of rotating liquid drops. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. Ser. A, 371, 331– 357) and cover drops of spheroidal as well as annular shape.