This stunning National Geographic photo contest winner shows an F-15 banking at an airshow and a array of great fluid dynamics. A vapor cloud has formed over the wings of Keep reading
Month: May 2023
Liquid Lenses
Here astronaut Andre Kuipers demonstrates fluid dynamics in microgravity. A roughly spherical droplet of water acts as a lens, refracting the image of his face so that it appears upside Keep reading
The Backward-Facing Step
This photo collage shows vortices shed off a backward-facing step. The flow is left to right. Here the flow is visualized using dye released in water. Initially, the vortex forms Keep reading
Homemade Hybrid Rocket Engine
In this video, Ben Krasnow details and demos a small hybrid rocket engine he built in his workshop. Hybrid rockets utilize propellants that are two different states of matter, in Keep reading
Atomizing
High-speed video reveals the complexity of fluid instabilities leading to atomization–the breakup of a liquid sheet into droplets. A thin annular liquid sheet is sandwiched between concentric air streams. As Keep reading
Shark-Tooth Instability
A viscous fluid inside a horizontally rotating circular cylinder forms a shark-tooth-like pattern along the fluid’s free surface. This is one of several patterns observed depending on the fluid’s viscosity Keep reading
Formula 1 Aerodynamics
[original media no longer available] Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and the advent of supercomputing have forever changed the way engineers design. Here the use of CFD in the design of Keep reading
Acoustic Levitation
Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory are using acoustic levitation of droplets to further pharmaceuticals. By placing two precisely aligned speakers opposite one another, a standing wave can be created. At Keep reading
Ferrofluid Drop
A drop of ferrofluid is shaped by seven small circular magnets sitting beneath the glass and paper. Ferrofluids are made up of nanoscale ferromagnetic particles suspended in a carrier liquid. Keep reading
Boiling Without Bubbles
Water droplets sprinkled on a sufficiently hot frying pan will skitter and skate across the surface on a thin layer of vapor due to the Leidenfrost effect. When a solid Keep reading