Awhile back, I mentioned that bike manufacturer Specialized had built their own wind tunnel to test cycling equipment. In this video, they provide a walk-through of their facility. Although there Keep reading
Month: February 2025
Reader Question: Fractals and Turbulence
Reader 3d-time asks: Hi, there is a guy, at my college, who is doing a master’s degree thesis in turbulence. He says he uses fractals and computational methods. Can you Keep reading
Steam Hammer
The steam hammer phenomenon–and the closely related water hammer one–is a violent behavior that occurs in two-phase flows. Nick Moore has a fantastic step-by-step explanation of the physics, accompanied by high-speed Keep reading
“Clourant”
Photographers Cassandra Warner and Jeremy Floto produced the “Clourant” series of high-speed photographs of colorful liquid splashes. The artists took special care to disguise the origin of splashes, making them Keep reading
The Magnus Effect in Football
Like many sports, the gameplay in football can be strongly affected by the ball’s spin. Corner kicks and free kicks can curve in non-intuitive ways, making the job of the Keep reading
Turbojet Engines
[original media no longer available] GE has a great new video with a straightforward explanation of the turbojet and the turbofan engines. The simplest description of the engines–suck, squeeze, bang, Keep reading
Balloon Explosion
These photos are shadowgraphs of a hydrogen flame exploding inside a balloon. The shadowgraph optical technique highlights density and temperature variations through their effect on a fluid’s refractive index. Here Keep reading
Jupiter Timelapse
This timelapse video shows Jupiter as seen by Voyager 1. In it, each second corresponds to approximately 1 Jupiter day, or 10 Earth hours. Be sure to fullscreen it so Keep reading
Distorted Rings
The Marangoni effect is generated by variations in surface tension at an interface. Such variations can be temperature-driven, concentration-driven, or simply due to the mixing between fluids of differing surface Keep reading
“Chromatic Mushrooms”
Chemical Bouillon’s art often mixes chemistry and fluid dynamics. Here dense UV dyes falling through a less dense fluid form long strings with mushroom-like caps or tree-like branches. (For reference, gravity Keep reading