Breakup Length of Electrified Liquid Jets: Scaling Laws and Applications

The instability mechanism of an electrified liquid jet shows different behavior in the viscid (having positive viscosity) and inviscid (showing no resistance to shear stress) regimes, which affects the length of the jet before it breaks up into droplets. Even after much research on electrified jets, a quantitative estimate for the breakup length is still lacking. The authors present a physical model, verified by systematic experiments, that predicts the breakup length in both the viscid and inviscid regimes. This model shows how to attain enhanced quality and resolution in electrohydrodynamic inkjet printing, for example.