Celebrating the physics of all that flows with Nicole Sharp, Ph.D.
- Profile
Moving Fluids in the Right Direction
One challenge in creating miniature labs-on-a-chip is keeping fluids moving in the desired direction. The top image above shows red and blue droplets being moved toward one another on the top and bottom of a vibrating surface. Eventually, they meet and mix in the middle. To force the fluids in the right direction, the surface…
Flow Inside Convection Cells
Looking at convective cells, it’s easy to think that they are still and unmoving. But when you add particles, their inner flow becomes obvious. Warm, light fluid moves up through the center of each cell, skims along the surface, and then sinks at the edges of the cell after losing its heat at the cooling…
Rheoscopic Flow Vis
One of the great challenges in visualizing fluid flows is the freedom of movement. A fluid particle – meaning some tiny little bit of fluid we want to follow – is generally free to move in any direction and even change its shape (but not mass). This makes tracking all of those changes difficult, and…
The Mist of Champagne
If you’ve ever popped open a chilled bottle of champagne, you’ve probably witnessed the gray-white cloud of mist that forms as the cork flies. Opening the bottle releases a spurt of high-pressure carbon dioxide gas, although that’s not what you see in the cloud. The cloud consists of water droplets from the ambient air, driven…
Building Liquid Circuits
Building microfluidic circuits is generally a multi-day process, requiring a clean room and specialized manufacturing equipment. A new study suggests a quicker alternative using fluid walls to define the circuit instead of solid ones. The authors refer to their technique as “Freestyle Fluidics”. As seen above, the shape of the circuit is printed in the operating…
Bouncing Off a Film
Surface tension is the result of an imbalance between intermolecular forces near an interface. Imagine a water molecule far from the surface; it is surrounded on all sides by other water molecules and feels each of those pulling on it. Since all the nearby molecules are water, the tugs from every direction balance and there…
Flag Flapping
Everyone has watched a flag flutter in the breeze, but you may not have given much thought to it. One of the earliest scientists to consider the problem was Lord Rayleigh, who wrote an aside on the mathematics of an infinite flag flapping in a paper on jets (pdf). Today researchers consider the problem in…
Porous Fingers
If you inject a less viscous fluid, like air, into a narrow gap between two glass plates filled with a more viscous fluid, you’ll get a finger-like instability known as the Saffman-Taylor instability. If you invert the situation – injecting something viscous like water into air – the water will simply expand radially; you’ll get…
The Rose-Window Instability
This polygonal pattern is known as the rose-window instability. It’s formed between two electrodes – one a needle-like point, the other flat – separated by a layer of oil. The pointed electrode’s voltage ionizes the air nearby, creating a stream of ions that travel toward the flat electrode below. Oil is a poor conductor, however,…
Detergency
Have you ever wondered just how detergents are able to get grease and oil off a surface? This simple example demonstrates one method. In the top image, a drop of oil sits attached to a solid surface; both are immersed in water. An eyedropper injects a surfactant chemical near the oil drop. This lowers the…