Plateau-Rayleigh instability of a viscous film on a soft fiber

Abstract

We theoretically study the Plateau-Rayleigh instability of a thin viscous film covering a fiber consisting of a rigid cylindrical core coated with a thin compressible elastic layer. We develop a soft-lubrication model, combining the capillary-driven flow in the viscous film to the elastic deformation of the soft coating, within the Winkler-foundation framework. We perform a linear-stability analysis and derive the dispersion relation. We find that the growth rate is larger when the soft coating is more compliant. As such, softness acts as a destabilising factor. In contrast, increasing the thickness of the soft coating reduces the growth rate, due to the dominating geometrical effect.