An elastic jump is a short transition from a fast, narrow supercritical collapsible tube flow to a slower, wider subcritical flow. Neglecting body force and distributed friction across the jump conserves flux and the momentum flux shown above. Distinct upstream and downstream areas therefore obey . The flux function has its unique minimum at , so an upstream state below this value has one conjugate state above it. The jump dissipates mechanical energy; it does not conserve a Bernoulli constant.
For and constant flux , a downhill collapsible tube flow obeys the displayed steady equation. Uniform area satisfies . Since , linearizing about this root gives downstream exponential decay precisely when . This is spatial stability of a steady inlet-value problem, not a guarantee of temporal stability of the driven flow. The wave speed is , so the stable spatial branch is supercritical.
Subcritical tube flow 2026-10-14
A positive collapsible tube flow is subcritical when its characteristic speeds and have opposite signs. A downstream boundary can then send information upstream. For a quadratic pressure-area law and fixed dimensionless flux , this corresponds to .
Supercritical tube flow 2026-10-14
A positive collapsible tube flow is supercritical when both characteristic speeds are positive relative to the wall. Information then propagates downstream on both branches. For a quadratic pressure-area law and fixed dimensionless flux , the condition is .
Tube wave speed 2026-10-14