The influence in the stability of long liquid bridges supported between two elliptical-shaped disks of their main axis relative orientation is investigated. A numerical continuation method capable of finding equilibrium shapes, both stable and unstable, is used to calculate a series of equilibrium shapes supported by disks of increasing eccentricity for different relative orientation of the disks axis. The stable or unstable character of each of the shapes is calculated to determine the position of the stability limit and its character.

Bifurcation diagrams of nonaxisymmetric cylindrical volume liquid bridges held between nonconcentric circular disks subject to a lateral gravitational force are found by solving the Young-Laplace equation for the interface by a finite difference method. In the absence of lateral gravity, the primary family of liquid bridges that starts with the cylinder when the eccentricity of the disks, e, is zero first loses stability at a subcritical bifurcation point as e increases. Further loss of stability is experienced by the already unstable primary family as a turning point is encountered at yet higher values of the eccentricity. However, the introduction of lateral gravity gl changes entirely the structure of the solutions in that instability always occurs at a turning point with respect to e no matter how small the magnitude of gl. The stability limits calculated are compared with the ones obtained using asymptotic techniques by taking as base solution the cylinder of slenderness Λ=π.