Knife-bladed vortices in non-Newtonian fluids

A tank is filled with a non-Newtonian fluid. We report on the deformation of the free surface resulting from the presence of an underlying vortex. In a tiny range of the experimental parameters, the flow spontaneously loses its initial axi-symmetry, leading to the formation of a stationary knife-bladed vortex. We report on the series of patterns observed experimentally and summarize the conditions of existence of the latter by establishing a state diagram. Received: 1 July 2016, Accepted: 24 October 2016; Edited by: J. P. Hulin; Reviewed by: C. Nouar, LEMTA, Université de Lorraine, Nancy, France; DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4279/PIP.080007 Cite as: E Freyssingeas, D Frelat, Y Dossmann, J-C Géminard, Papers in Physics 8, 080007 (2016)

Abstract licence: CC BY

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