Grain-scale modeling of arbitrary fluid saturation in random packings.

We propose a model for increasing liquid saturation in a granular packing, which can account for liquid redistribution at saturation levels beyond the well-studied capillary bridge regime. The model is capable of resolving and combining capillary bridges, menisci, and fully saturated pores to form local liquid clusters of any shape. They can exchange volume due to the local Laplace pressure gradient via a liquid film on the surfaces of grains. Local instabilities such as Haines jumps trigger the discontinuous evolution of the liquid front. The applicability of the model is demonstrated and compared to benchmark experiments on the level of individual liquid structures as well as on larger systems.

Long-wavelength instability of coherent structures in plane Couette flow.

We study the stability of coherent structures in plane Couette flow against long-wavelength perturbations in wide domains that cover several pairs of coherent structures. For one and two pairs of vortices, the states retain the stability properties of the small domains, but for three pairs new unstable modes are found. They are shown to be connected to bifurcations that break the translational symmetry and drive the coherent structures from the spanwise extended state to a modulated one that is a precursor to spanwise localized states. Tracking the stability of the orbits as functions of the spanwise wave length reveals a rich variety of additional bifurcations.