Physics Commons^™

Spontaneous Oscillations In Simple Fluid Networks, Nathaniel Karst, Brian Storey, John Geddes

Brian Storey

Nonlinear phenomena including multiple equilibria and spontaneous oscillations are common in fluid networks containing either multiple phases or constituents. In many systems, such behavior might be attributed to the complicated geometry of the network, the complex rheology of the constituent fluids, or, in the case of microvascular blood flow, biological control. In this paper we investigate two examples of a simple three-node fluid network containing two miscible Newtonian fluids of differing viscosities, the first modeling microvascular blood flow and the second modeling stratified laminar flow. We use a combination of analytic and numerical techniques to identify and track saddle-node and …