A sticky situation. (4th May 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Brun, P.-T.
• Is Part Of: Journal of fluid mechanics. Volume 820(2017)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 4
• Publication Date: 2017-05-04
• Subjects: instability, -- interfacial flows (free surface), -- nonlinear dynamical systems; Fluid mechanics -- Periodicals; 532.005
• DOI: 10.1017/jfm.2017.246
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0022-1120

Abstract

Abstract : The whirling helical structure obtained when pouring honey onto toast may seem like an easy enough problem to solve at breakfast. Specifically, one would hope that a quick back-of-the-envelope scaling argument would help rationalize the observed behaviour and predict the coiling frequency. Not quite: multiple forces come into play, both in the part of the flow stretched by gravity and in the coil itself, which buckles and bends like a rope. In fact, the resulting abundance of regimes requires the careful numerical continuation method reported by Ribe ( J. Fluid Mech., vol. 812, 2017, R2) to build a complete phase diagram of the problem and untangle this sticky situation.