Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 109, Issue 36, Pages 14353-14356Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1204920109
Keywords
fluid mechanics; electrohydrodynamics; electrokinetic instability
Categories
Funding
- NSF PECASE [CTS-0239080]
- CAREER [CBET-0747917]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
We present an investigation of chaotic dynamics of a low Reynolds number electrokinetic flow. Electrokinetic flows arise due to couplings of electric fields and electric double layers. In these flows, applied (steady) electric fields can couple with ionic conductivity gradients outside electric double layers to produce flow instabilities. The threshold of these instabilities is controlled by an electric Rayleigh number, Ra-e. As Ra-e increases monotonically, we show here flow dynamics can transition from steady state to a time-dependent periodic state and then to an aperiodic, chaotic state. Interestingly, further monotonic increase of Ra-e shows a transition back to a well-ordered state, followed by a second transition to a chaotic state. Temporal power spectra and time-delay phase maps of low dimensional attractors graphically depict the sequence between periodic and chaotic states. To our knowledge, this is a unique report of a low Reynolds number flow with such a sequence of periodic-to-aperiodic transitions. Also unique is a report of strange attractors triggered and sustained through electric fluid body forces.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available