Flying fragments can be a big danger in explosions. Shown above are two shadowgraph images of 1 gram explosives originally packed in solid containers. Each explosion produced a visible spherical shock wave, about 1 meter across in both pictures. On the left side, the container has fragmented into large pieces, each of which travels near to but less than the speed of sound. On the right, the fragments are much smaller, but many of them are traveling at supersonic speeds ahead of the main shock wave. If you look closely, you can even see faint Mach cones extending from each fragment. In a real, full-scale explosion, these shards would strike like a hail of bullets ahead of the blast wave. (Image credit: G. Settles)
Category: Phenomena
The Mantis Shrimp’s Left Hook
The mantis shrimp is a tiny, clown-colored juggernaut of underwater physics. Some species have modified claws that serve as clubs for punching their prey, and the mantis shrimp swings that club fast – its acceleration is comparable to a bullet’s! Moving that quickly in water causes a drastic drop in local pressure, low enough to form a cavitation bubble. Such low-pressure bubbles themselves are not particularly dangerous, but their collapse is incredibly violent, especially near a solid surface, like the shell of the shrimp’s prey. Collapsing cavitation bubbles can send out shock waves, shatter glass, and even generate light. In the case of the mantis shrimp, it’s more than enough to stun, if not outright kill, its prey. (Video credit: Physics Girl)
Vortex Reconnection
In slow motion, vortex rings can be truly stunning. This video shows two bubble rings underwater as they interact with one another. Upon approach, the two low-pressure vortex cores link up in what’s known as vortex reconnection. Note how the vortex rings split and reconnect in two places – not one. According to Helmholtz’s second theorem a vortex cannot end in a fluid–it must form a closed path (or end at a boundary); that’s why both sides come apart and together this way. After reconnection, waves ripple back and forth along the distorted vortex ring; these are known as Kelvin waves. Some of those perturbations bring two sides of the enlarged vortex ring too close to one another, causing a second vortex reconnection, which pinches off a smaller vortex ring. (Image source: A. Lawrence; submitted by Kam-Yung Soh)
Note: As with many viral images, locating a true source for this video is difficult. So far the closest to an original source I’ve found is the Instagram post linked above. If you know the original source, please let me know so that I can update the credit accordingly. Thanks!
Flow Around a Cylinder
A cylinder standing upright in a flow creates a complicated system of vortices and recirculation. In the photo above, the flow is left to right. The cylinder itself is somewhat hard to see but is located in the center of the image; we see it from above. The colored streaks of dye show the flow path around the cylinder. In yellow, we see a spiraling vortex that forms just ahead of the cylinder and stretches downstream on either side. Because of its shape, this is called a horseshoe vortex. Its sense of rotation is such that it tends to pick up loose material in front of the cylinder; in other words, it can erode that area. This is often seen around the pilings of bridge supports and must be accounted for in designs. You also see the effects of this horseshoe vortex digging out material at the base of trees after snowfalls in areas with a dominant wind direction, and here’s an example with a snow roller. (Image credit: H. Werlé; via eFluids)
Burning a Rocket Underwater
In a recent video, Warped Perception filmed a model rocket engine firing underwater. Firstly, it’s no surprise that the engine would still operate underwater (after its wax waterproofing). The solid propellant inside the engine is a mixture of fuel and oxidizer, so it has all the oxygen it needs. Fluid dynamically speaking, though, this high-speed footage is just gorgeous.
Ignition starts at about 3:22 with some cavitation as the exhaust gases start flowing. Notice how that initial bubble dimples the surface when it rises (3:48). At the same time, the expanding exhaust on the right side of the tank is forcing the water level higher on that side, triggering an overflow starting at about 3:55. At this point, the splashes start to obscure the engine somewhat, but that’s okay. Watch that sheet of liquid; it develops a thicker rim edge and starts forming ligaments around 4:10. Thanks to surface tension and the Plateau-Rayleigh instability, those ligaments start breaking into droplets (4:20). A couple seconds later, holes form in the liquid sheet, triggering a larger breakdown. By 4:45, you can see smoke-filled bubbles getting swept along by the splash, and larger holes are nucleating in that sheet.
The second set of fireworks comes around 5:42, when the parachute ejection charge triggers. That second explosive triggers a big cavitation bubble and shock wave that utterly destroys the tank. If you look closely, you can see the cavitation bubble collapse and rebound as the pressure tries to adjust, but by that point, the tank is already falling. Really spectacular stuff! (Video and image credit: Warped Perception)
Impressionist Gibraltar
Swirls of phytoplankton make this satellite image of Gibraltar look like an Impressionist painting. The photo is a composite of data from several instruments, with colors enhanced to highlight features of the phytoplankton blooms. The tiny plankton act as tracer particles that reveal some of the complex flow between the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Although narrow, the Strait at Gibraltar has deep and complex terrain that was formed during a breach flood event millions of years ago. Water flowing through that terrain sets up enormous and complicated waves well beneath the ocean surface. These drive some of the turbulence that we see here as the blue swirls east of the Strait. (Image credit: NASA/N. Kurig; via NASA Earth Observatory)
Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability
Sixty Symbols has a great new video explaining the laboratory set-up for demoing a Kelvin-Helmholtz instability. You can see a close-up from the demo above. Here the pink liquid is fresh water and the blue is slightly denser salt water. When the tank holding them is tipped, the lighter fresh water flows upward while the salt water flows down. This creates a big velocity gradient and lots of shear at the interface between them. The situation is unstable, meaning that any slight waviness that forms between the two layers will grow (exponentially, in this case). Note that for several long seconds, it seems like nothing is happening. That’s when any perturbations in the system are too small for us to see. But because the instability causes those perturbations to grow at an exponential rate, we see the interface go from a slight waviness to a complete mess in only a couple of seconds. The Kelvin-Helmholtz instability is incredibly common in nature, appearing in clouds, ocean waves, other planets’ atmospheres, and even in galaxy clusters! (Image and video credit: Sixty Symbols)
How Smoke Rings Work
Vortices are a ubiquitous part of life, whether they’re draining down your bathtub or propelling underwater robots. In the latest video from the Lib Lab project, you can learn about how vortex rings form, what makes them last so long, and even make a vortex generator of your own. I can personally attest that vortex cannons are good for hours of entertainment, no matter your age. They’re even more fun with friends, as the Oregon State drumline demonstrates in the video. Want even more vortex fun? Check out leapfrogging vortices, vortex rings colliding head-on, and a giant 3 meter wide vortex cannon in action. (Video and image credit: Lib Lab)
Hagfish Crash
Last week a flatbed truck in Oregon overturned and released 3400 kilograms of live hagfish on the highway and nearby cars. Hagfish are eel-like fish known for their impressive slime production. When threatened, the hagfish produce mucins that, when combined with water, form an extremely viscoelastic mucus. As it’s stretched, the mucus thickens and becomes more viscous. Normally, hagfish use this property to clog the gills of fish trying to eat them. The slime is weak, however, to shearing; hagfish actually tie themselves in knots to slide the slime off when there’s too much of it. The Oregon Department of Transportation managed to clear the road of mucus (and hagfish) using bulldozers and fire hoses, but it did take them several hours. For more photos and videos from the incident, check out Gizmodo and the Oregon State Police Twitter feed. (Image credit: Oregon State Police; via Gizmodo)
The Winds of Mars
The Martian atmosphere is scant compared to Earth’s, but its winds still sculpt and change the surface regularly. The average atmospheric pressure on Mars is only 0.6% of Earth’s, and the density is similarly low at 1.7% of Earth’s. Despite this thinness, Martian winds are still substantial enough to shift sands on a daily basis, as shown above. These two images were taken one Martian day apart, showing how sand ripples moved and how the Curiosity rover’s tracks can be quickly obscured. Part of the reason Mars’ scant atmosphere is still so good at moving sand is that Martian gravity is roughly one-third of ours; if the sand is lighter, it doesn’t take as much force to move! (Image credit: NASA/JPL-CALTECH/MSSS)
