An evaporating drop of ouzo goes through several stages due to the interactions of oil, alcohol and water. If you turn the situation around by placing a drop of (blue-dyed) Keep reading
Month: May 2023
Phase-Switching to Avoid Icing
Preventing ice and frost from forming on surfaces – especially airplane wings – is a major engineering concern. The chemical de-icing cocktails currently used in aviation are a short-lived solution, Keep reading
Agnes Pockels: Surface Science Pioneer
Today’s FYFD video tells a story I’ve wanted to share for a couple of years now. It’s about the life and work of Agnes Pockels, a woman born in the Keep reading
The Color of Droplets
In nature, color comes from many sources: like the pigmentation of skin and hair, the structural iridescence of a butterfly’s wings, or the refraction of a rainbow from water droplets. Keep reading
Weirs
Hydraulic engineers use weirs, like the one shown below, to control upstream flow conditions. Weirs can come in many forms, but they essentially look like a small dam with water Keep reading
Forming a Waterfall
Many factors can affect a waterfall’s formation – changes in bedrock structure, tectonic shifts, and glacial motion, to name a few. But a new study suggests that some waterfalls may Keep reading
Water Impacts
In the clean and simplified world of the laboratory, a droplet’s impact on water is symmetric. From a central point of impact, it sends out a ring of ripples, or Keep reading
Rogue Waves
After centuries of tales from sailors, in 1995 the Draupner off-shore platform recorded the first ever evidence of a freak wave – a single, wall-like wave steeper and taller than Keep reading
Moving Droplets
Microfluidic devices – such as those used by individuals with diabetes to monitor their blood glucose levels – are all about transport. Typically, these devices use some kind of externally Keep reading
Freezing Drop Impact
At the altitudes where aircraft fly, it’s often cold enough for water drops to freeze in seconds or less. Once attached to a wing, such frozen drops disrupt the flow, Keep reading