Plastic bottle oscillator: Rhythmicity and mode bifurcation of fluid flow

The oscillatory flow of water draining from an upside-down plastic bottle with a thin pipe attached to its head is studied as an example of a dissipative structure generated under far-from-equilibrium conditions. Mode bifurcation was observed in the water/air flow: no flow, oscillatory flow, and counter flow were found when the inner diameter of the thin pipe was changed. The modes are stable against perturbations. A coupled two-bottle system exhibits either in-phase or anti-phase self-synchronization. These characteristic behaviors imply that the essential features of the oscillatory flow in a single bottle system can be described as a limit-cycle oscillation. (c) 2007 American Association of Physics Teachers.