Luke Robinson
Interface Stability and Interplay of Surface Tension and Inertial Stabilisation Mechanisms
The goal of this project is to advance knowledge of fundamental aspects of interface dynamics by utilising the recent discoveries of a new fluid instability and an inertial stabilisation mechanism. The proposed project is organised as follows:
(1) The interface dynamics is considered in a continuous approximation for ideal incompressible fluids with interfacial mass flux and surface tension. The interface is a phase boundary broadly defined, and surface tension is a tension at a phase boundary between the flow phases
(2) The governing equations involve the conservation of mass, momentum and energy in the bulk, and the boundary conditions at the interface
(3) The general matrix method is applied to solve the linearised boundary value problem
(4) The fundamental solutions for the problem are derived in a broad parameter regime
(5) The quantitative (i.e., the growth of the interface perturbations), the qualitative (e.g. the structure of flow fields) and the formal (e.g., degeneracy of the dynamics) properties of the fundamental solutions are investigated.
The expected outcomes include the understanding of the interplay of the inertial and traditional stabilisation mechanisms, the direct linkage of the microscopic transport at the interface to macroscopic flow fields, and the quantification of the interface stability in a broad range of parameters.
Luke Robinson
University of Western Australia
Luke Robinson recently finished his Bachelor of Science with majors in Mathematics, and Physics at the University of Western Australia. Luke is pursuing either a Masters in Theoretical Physics or an Honours in Applied Mathematics in the future. His research project looks at interface stability and the interplay of surface tension and inertial stabilisation mechanisms. Future research may attempt to further investigate this field.
