Running interfacial waves in two-layer fluid system subject to longitudinal vibrations

TL;DR

This paper derives evolution equations for interfacial waves in a two-layer fluid system under high-frequency vibrations, revealing the existence, stability, and dynamics of solitary waves and their role in layer rupture.

Contribution

It introduces a rigorous derivation of evolution equations matching the

Findings

Fast solitons are stable.

Unstable solitons can lead to layer rupture.

Long-wave approximation reveals long-wavelength instabilities.

Abstract

We study the waves at the interface between two thin horizontal layers of immiscible fluids subject to high-frequency horizontal vibrations. Previously, the variational principle for energy functional, which can be adopted for treatment of quasi-stationary states of free interface in fluid dynamical systems subject to vibrations, revealed existence of standing periodic waves and solitons in this system. However, this approach does not provide regular means for dealing with evolutionary problems: neither stability problems nor ones associated with propagating waves. In this work, we rigorously derive the evolution equations for long waves in the system, which turn out to be identical to the "plus" (or "good") Boussinesq equation. With these equations one can find all time-independent-profile solitary waves (standing solitons are a specific case of these propagating waves), which exist below the linear instability threshold; the standing and slow solitons are always unstable while fast solitons are stable. Depending on initial perturbations, unstable solitons either grow in an explosive manner, which means layer rupture in a finite time, or falls apart into stable solitons. The results are derived within the long-wave approximation as the linear stability analysis for the flat-interface state [D.V. Lyubimov, A.A. Cherepanov, Fluid Dynamics, vol. 21, 849-854 (1987)] reveals the instabilities of thin layers to be long-wavelength.