Unipolar injection induced instabilities in plane parallel flows

The behavior of small disturbances in parallel flows of insulating liquids subjected to charge injection, with imposed electric field orthogonal to the primary flow, is studied. The resulting convective patterns and the instability thresholds, for plane Couette and Poiseuille flows, have been determined. Particular attention has also been given to the energy transfer between the primary flow and the secondary flow in order to gain physical insight into the way the inertial and the electric physical mechanisms act on the liquid