Nonlinear Dynamics of Coiling in Viscoelastic Jets

Instabilities in free surface continuous jets of non-Newtonian fluids, although relevant for many industrial processes, remain less well understood in terms of fundamental fluid dynamics. Inviscid, and viscous Newtonian jets have been studied in great detail; buckling instability in viscous jets leads to regular periodic coiling of the jet that exhibits a non-trivial frequency dependence with the height of the fall. Very few experimental or theoretical studies exist for continuous viscoelastic jets beyond the onset of the first instability. Here, we present a systematic study of the effects of viscoelasticity on the dynamics of free surface continuous jets of surfactant solutions that form worm-like micelles. We observe complex nonlinear spatio-temporal dynamics of the jet and uncover a transition from periodic to doubly-periodic or quasi-periodic to a multi-frequency, possibly chaotic dynamics. Beyond this regime, the jet dynamics smoothly crosses over to exhibit the "leaping shampoo effect" or the Kaye effect. This enables us to view seemingly disparate jetting dynamics as one coherent picture of successive instabilities and transitions between them. We identify the relevant scaling variables as the dimensionless height, flow rate, and the elasto-gravity number and present a regime map of the dynamics of the jet in terms of these parameters.