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The stability of liquid layers spread over simple curved bodies is investigated theoretically. It is assumed that the fluid is incompressible and inviscid and the flow irrotational. The effects of surface tension and uni-directional body forces are included. As the differential equation governing the equilibrium of liquid layers in the presence of surface tension is highly nonlinear, the problem of stability is studied by means of an inverse method. That is, the shape of the liquid layer is prescribed and the criterion for its stability established. The equations of motion for small perturbations about the equilibrium con iguration and the boundary conditions are developed for the general two-dimensional case, the three-dime sional case with axial symmetry, and the special case of a layer of uniform thickness spread over a rigid sphere. (Author).

Liquid-gas interfaces are studied from two viewpoints. The first method uses the classical surface tension model of the interface. The differential equation defining the equilibrium shape of the interface relates the surface tension with the pressure difference across the interface. The boundary conditions for the equation assume that the contact angles (the angles the liquid forms with the container waalls) are constant and independent of the body forces. An iterative method for finding the equilibrium shape is developed, for the case of small body forces. The method is used in two cases and compared with results of other methods. The stability of the interface is investigated for a two-dimensional layer spread over a segment of a rigid cylinder with rigid radial walls. The eigenfunctions of the vibrations of layers of nonuniform depth are expanded in terms of the eigenfunctions for the layers of uniform depth. Approximations are made by truncating the series. The coefficients are obtained by minimizing the mean square error along the interface. The results are given in the form of a relationship between a dimensionless stability parameter and the angle between the radial walls for the case of limiting stability. A comparison of the approximate results with known solutions shows good agreement.

The eye globe was treated as a spherical shell (combined cornea and sclera) filled with (vitreous and aqueous) and surrounded by (tissue and fat) incompressible, inviscid, irrotationally flowing fluids. Its dynamic behavior was investigated by making use of the Flugge shell equations and the appropriate inertia terms. The axisymmetric case was solved in closed form, and the asymmetric case was solved numerically. Some qualitative results for physiologically meaningful parameter values are given. Static and dynamic experiments were performed on enucleated dog eyes. The static experiment measured the change in volume of the eyes as a function of time at various pressures. The results of this experiment indicated that the eyes were viscoelastic with an associated time constant of approximately 20 minutes. (Author).