NONLINEAR ELECTROHYDRODYNAMIC RAYLEIGH-TAYLOR INSTABILITY WITH MASS AND HEAT-TRANSFER - EFFECT OF A TANGENTIAL FIELD

The nonlinear electrohydrodynamic stability of two superposed dielectric fluids with interfacial transfer of mass and heat transfer is presented for layers of finite thickness. The fluids are subjected to a tangential electric field. The method of multiple scale perturbations is used to obtain a dispersion relation for the first order and a Ginzburg-Landau equation, for the higher orders, describing the behaviour of the disturbed system. The stability criterion is expressible in terms of various competing parameters representing the equilibrium heat flux, latent heat of evaporation, gravity, surface tension, densities of the fluids, dielectric constants of the fluids, thickness of the layers and thermal properties of the fluids. The stability of this perturbed system is discussed both analytically and numerically near the marginal state according to the nonlinear diffusion equation and the stability diagrams are obtained.