By
H.-C. Chang, University of Notre Dame, IL, USA
E.A. Demekhin, Kuban State University, Russia
Description
Wave evolution on a falling film is a classical hydrodynamic instability whose rich wave dynamics have been carefully recorded in the
last fifty years. Such waves are known to profoundly affect the mass and heat transfer of multi-phase industrial units.
This book
describes the collective effort of both authors and their students in constructing a comprehensive theory to describe the complex wave
evolution from nearly harmonic waves at the inlet to complex spatio-temporal patterns involving solitary waves downstream. The mathematical
theory represents a significant breakthrough from classical linear stability theories, which can only describe the inlet harmonic waves
and also extends classical soliton theory for integrable systems to real solitrary wave dynamics with dissipation. One unique feature
of falling-film solitary wave dynamics, which drives much of the spatio-temporal wave evolution, is the irreversible coalescence of such
localized wave structures. It represents the first full description of a hydrodynamic instability from inception to developed chaos.
This approach should prove useful for other complex hydrodynamic instabilities and would allow industrial engineers to better design
their multi-phase apparati by exploiting the deciphered wave dynamics. This publication gives a comprehensive review of all experimental
records and existing theories and significantly advances state of the art on the subject and are complimented by complex and attractive
graphics from computational fluid mechanics.
Included in series
Studies in Interface Science
Audience:
For engineering, physics and applied mathematic institutes/departments and industrial and national research labs.
