Self similar pattern when ink dissolves in water

When I drop ink into the water very carefully, I thought
this would be just simply chaotic process like in Rayleigh-Taylor
instability with no well defined pattern; however, surprisingly,
it turns out to be rather regular with self similar bifurcation
where number three is preferred. I don't know why and I did
not see this phenomenon elsewhere in the textbook; therefore,
I upload it to see if anyone can give me some reasonable explanations of it.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• fluid
• self
• similar
• instability
• fractal

[Tilosag]

nice water

[wenaolong]

Shouldn't it be called "trifurcation".... ?

[secretcp5]

Great exemple of > 4.669

But i just can recommand u buyng a TRIPOD

and place Three cam

one on TOP view

other on FRONT view

and SIDE

will be great

You can Do it again

[danielpakk]

Search for "mec flu" on btjunkie.

The video Flow_Instabilities.avi opens up with this very example. It's a combination of vorticity and Kelvin-Helmholtz instability on the surface of the ink donut as it reaches terminal velocity inside the water.

Hope you enjoy it.

[tat2006]

Thanks, I wonder to know too.

[miaohaixing]

I think it is more related to the surface tension, similar to the breaking down of raindrop into smaller droplets but here in a more regular way. I don't know exactly why;-)

[Hamiltonian2]

Diffusion-limited aggregation ?

[skiplogic]

missile command

[saturne46]

Très belle, cette cascade d'instabilités azimuthales. Merci

[C0E]

sounds reasonable