title: Spontaneous growth of fluctuations in the viscous flow of a fluid past a soft interface
abstract: The flow induced instability in the flow past a soft material is studied in the limit of low Reynolds number where inertial effects are insignificant. A transition from laminar flow to a more complicated flow profile is observed when the strain rate of the base flow increases beyond a critical value; the transition is found to be reproducible. The experimental results are compared with theoretical predictions and quantitative agreement is found with no adjustable parameters.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012, India.
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Kumaran
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Muralikrishnan