EFFECT OF EXTERNAL HARMONIC VIBRATION ON THE FORMATION OF SOLITARY WAVES IN FALLING TWO-LAYER LIQUID FILMS

Abstract We study the influence of a low-frequency harmonic vibration on the formation of the two-dimensional rolling solitary waves in vertically co-flowing two-layer liquid films. The system consists of two adjacent layers of immiscible fluids with the first layer being sandwiched between a vertical solid plate and the second fluid layer. The solid plate oscillates harmonically in the horizontal direction inducing Faraday waves at the liquid–liquid and liquid–air interfaces. We use a reduced hydrodynamic model derived from the Navier–Stokes equations in the long-wave approximation. Linear stability of the base flow in a flat two-layer film is determined semi-analytically using Floquet theory. We consider sub-millimetre-thick films and focus on the competition between the long-wavelength gravity-driven and finite wavelength Faraday instabilities. In the linear regime, the range of unstable wave vectors associated with the gravity-driven instability broadens at low and shrinks at high vibration frequencies. In nonlinear regimes, we find multiple metastable states characterized by solitary-like travelling waves and short pulsating waves. In particular, we find the range of the vibration parameters at which the system is multistable. In this regime, depending on the initial conditions, the long-time dynamics is dominated either by the fully developed solitary-like waves or by the shorter pulsating Faraday waves.