Modelling secondary instability of co-current a thin gas-sheared film

Recent experimental works found the existence of two types of waves on the surface of gas-sheared thin films. Slower short-living 'secondary waves' appear due to the instability of the rear slopes of faster long-living 'primary waves'. In this paper, modelling of spatiotemporal evolution of liquid film in such kind of flows is performed using relatively simple theoretical models. The modelling results are directly compared with the experimental data. It is found that the phenomenon of secondary waves generation at the rear slopes of the primary waves is reproduced by the model. This allows us to reduce the number of hypotheses which explain the mechanism responsible for such instability. Recommendations for future theoretical investigations are proposed.