During explosions, solid particles and liquids packed around the explosive charges can form jets, making a blast wave appear more porcupine-like than spherical. The instability mechanisms that cause this behavior Keep reading
Month: March 2025
Stick-Slip Bubbles
Varying the rate of injection of air into a wet granular mixture contained in a Hele Shaw cell results in very different flow patterns. At low injection rates, stick-slip bubbles Keep reading
Structures in Turbulence
Despite its appearance, there is order in the chaos of turbulence. These snapshots from a turbulent channel flow simulation outline these coherent structures in black. The top photo shows a Keep reading
Splash Sheets
When a falling liquid jet hits a horizontal impacter, it is deflected into a sheet. The shape of the sheet is dependent upon the velocity of the jet and the Keep reading
Viscoelastic Fluids in Space
In honor of astronaut Don Pettit’s launch to the International Space Station (and in the hope that he’ll do more neat microgravity fluids demonstrations while in space!), here’s a look Keep reading
Sound Sculptures
This is another fun and artistic use of non-Newtonian fluids (paint) vibrating on a speaker cone for advertising purposes. The shear-thinning viscous properties of the paint vie with surface tension Keep reading
Particle Image Velocimetry
One common experimental technique for measuring velocity in a flow is particle image velocimetry (PIV), shown above. Special particles are introduced–seeded–into the flow. Typically, these particles are small, neutrally buoyant, and Keep reading
Wave Clouds Over Alabama
Last week, Birmingham, Alabama got treated to a special cloudy day, thanks to some Kelvin-Helmholtz waves, shown above. When a layer of faster moving fluid shears a slower moving fluid, Keep reading
Leaping Shampoo
The Kaye effect is a neat phenomenon associated with falling shear-thinning non-Newtonian fluids like shampoo or hand soap. As the falling liquid piles up after hitting a solid surface, it Keep reading
Glass Isn’t a Fluid
Mark R writes: Glass is a Fluid, Too Post complex equations regarding how long it would take a certain window to flow, and post pictures of sunken glass. This would Keep reading