Dripping faucet dynamics in a nonuniform electric field

Abstract

Two experimental bifurcation diagrams were obtained with two different control parameters. One parameter was the faucet opening and the other one, keeping fixed the faucet opening, was an electrical voltage (V) applied to a metallic cylinder that surrounds the pendant water column. In this way, the drops are formed in an electrical field gradient that polarizes the water column altering the effective surface tension that is consistent with the observed decreasing of the drop mass as the potential is increased, while the water flow rate remains constant. We observed that the two bifurcations are similar for $S\lesssim 65$ and $V\lesssim 2.05\text{kV}$ ; otherwise, the bifurcation evolutions are quite different.