Transition to elasto-capillary thinning dynamics in viscoelastic jets

We perform simulations of an impulsively started, axisymmetric viscoelastic jet exiting a nozzle and entering a stagnant gas phase using the open-source code Basilisk. This code allows for efficient computations through an adaptively refined volume-of-fluid technique that can accurately capture the deformation of the liquid–gas interface. We use the FENE-P constitutive equation to describe the viscoelasticity of the liquid, and employ the log-conformation transformation, which provides stable solutions for the evolution of the conformation tensor as the jet thins down under the action of interfacial tension. For the first time, the entire jetting and breakup process of a viscoelastic fluid is simulated, including the pre-shearing flow through the nozzle, which results in an inhomogeneous initial radial stress distribution in the fluid thread that affects the subsequent breakup dynamics. The evolution of the velocity field and the elastic stresses in the nozzle are validated against analytical solutions where possible, and the early-stage dynamics of the jet evolution are compared favourably to the predictions of linear stability theory. We study the effect of the flow inside the nozzle on the thinning dynamics of the viscoelastic jet (which develops distinctive ‘beads-on-a-string’ structures) and on the spatio-temporal evolution of the polymeric stresses in order to systematically explore the dependence of the filament thinning and breakup characteristics on the initial axial momentum of the jet and the extensibility of the dissolved polymer chains.