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 ejects streams of fluid upwards. The effect usually only lasts for a few hundred milliseconds, but it is possible to see it at home without a high-speed camera if you pay close attention. More detailed physics of the effect are discussed in this previously featured video.
Category: Phenomena
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 be educational.This is a pretty widespread myth. Actually, glass is not a fluid and does not behave like one as long as it is below the glass transition temperature. It’s a bit difficult to classify glass under the traditional categories for a solid due to its phase transition behavior and its lack of crystallization, but it is usually classed as an amorphous solid.
The observation that old panes of glass tend to be thicker at the bottom is usually used as evidence that glass flows over the centuries, but this assumes that the glass was flat to begin with. However, glassblowers at the time usually made panes by spinning molten glass to create a round, mostly even flat, which was then cut to fit. Although spinning made the glass mostly flat, the edges of the disc tended to be thinner. When installed, the glass was typically placed thicker side down for stability purposes. One researcher even calculated the time period necessary for glass to flow and deform at ordinary temperatures as 10^32 years–longer than the age of the universe.
If that is not convincing, consider this: if glass flows at a rate that’s discernible to the naked eye after a couple of centuries, then the effect of this deformation should be extremely noticeable in antique telescopes since a slight change in the lens’ optical properties should dramatically affect performance. But no such degradation occurs. (Photo credit: Vincent van der Pas)
Surface Tension Instability
Droplets of oleic acid spread across a thin film of glycerol on a silicon wafer. The shapes here are driven by hydrodynamic instabilities, particularly Marangoni effects due to the differences in surface tension between the two fluids. (Photo credit: A. Darhuber, B. Fischer and S. Troian)
Brinicles
In the frozen reaches of our planet, the atmosphere and ocean can interact in bizarre ways. Under calm ocean conditions when the air at sea level is much colder than the water temperature brinicles–the underwater equivalent to an icicle–can form. The cold air above rapidly freezes ocean water at the surface, concentrating water’s salt content into a very cold brine which sinks rapidly. As this brine descends, it freezes the water around it into an ice sheath. As the brinicle grows and eventually reaches the sea floor, its cold temperatures can wreak havoc on the creatures living there.
Water Balloon Physics
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This video explores some of the physics behind the much-loved bursting water balloon. The first sections show some “canonical” cases–dropping water balloons onto a flat rigid surface. In some cases the balloon will bounce and in others it breaks. The bursting water balloons develop strong capillary waves (like ripples) across the upper surface and have some shear-induced deformation of the water surface as the rubber peals away. Then the authors placed a water balloon underwater and vibrated it before bursting it with a pin. They note that the breakdown of the interface between the balloon water and surrounding water shows evidence of Rayleigh-Taylor and Richtmyer-Meshkov instabilities. The Rayleigh-Taylor instability is the mushroom-like formation observed when stratified fluids of differing densities mix, while the Richtmyer-Meshkov instability is associated with the impulsive acceleration of fluids of differing density.
Bow Shock over a Perforated Plate
This schlieren image shows a sphere traveling at Mach 3 over a perforated plate. The bow shock in front of the sphere is clearly visible, as is its reflection off the plate. The pressure caused by the bow shock produces a series of spherical acoustic waves below the plate. A tiny vortex ring moves downward from each hole, followed at the right by a secondary ring moving upward from the holes in the plate. (Photo credit: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory; reprinted in Van Dyke’s An Album of Fluid Motion)
Freezing Drops
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The physics of droplets freezing is important for understanding applications like ice formation on airplane wings. Here we see how a warm droplet deposited on a cold plate freezes. A freezing front advances through the drop, which expands vertically as it freezes. Ultimately, the expansion of the ice and the surface tension of the water create a pointed singular tip.
High-Speed Droplet Collisions
This high-speed video shows the apparatus often used by photographers for fluid sculptures created from droplet collisions. As amazing as these formations are in still images, seeing their evolution at 5,000 fps is even more lovely.
Sewer Combustion
Enjoy a little high-speed video of combustion (the safe way!) this Thanksgiving holiday. For non-U.S. folks, have a great Thursday!
Superfluid Fountains
Superfluids, a special type of fluid located below the lambda point near absolute zero, exhibit some mind-bending properties like zero viscosity and zero entropy. They are, in essence, a macroscopic manifestation of quantum mechanics. Here their thermomechanical, or fountain, effect is explained. This bizarre state of matter isn’t only found in laboratories, though. Scientists now think that superfluids may exist at the heart of neutron stars.
