Inside a cavity with a square cross-section, bubbles form an array. The shapes of their edges are determined by surface tension and capillarity (lower half of center image). Adding an Keep reading
Tag: 2022gosmp
“Keeping Our Sheet Together”
When two liquid jets collide, they form a falling liquid sheet. Here researchers explore how that sheet breaks up when the liquids involved contain polymers. The intact areas of the Keep reading
A Levitated Boil
When acoustically levitated, objects tend to clump together and move like a single, large solid. But researchers found more fluid-like states for their levitated particles when the particles were smaller. Keep reading
Escaping the Flood
Fire ants clump together into giant rafts to stay alive during floods. But these rafts won’t form with just any number of ants. Researchers found that individual ants will actually Keep reading
Rifts in Rafts
A raft of particles floating on water has some natural cohesion from particle attraction and capillary action. But when the raft is pulled apart, what happens? Does it break cleanly Keep reading
Stably Jammed
Granular materials like sand, gravel, and medications can become a rigid mass when squeezed or sheared. Even with a relatively loose packing, these materials can jam together to act like Keep reading
Recreating Flocks
Birds, fish, and other creatures form amazing, undulating swarms of individuals. How these collectives comes together and move continues to fascinate scientists. Here, researchers look at simple particles with two Keep reading
Self-Stopping Leaks
A leak can actually stop itself, as shown in this video. To demonstrate, the team used a tube pierced with a small hole. When filled, water initially shoots out the Keep reading
Inside Viscous Fingers
Sandwich a viscous fluid between two transparent plates and then inject a second, less viscous fluid. This is the classic set-up for the Saffman-Taylor instability, a well-studied flow in which Keep reading
Squishy Actuators
Hard materials don’t always work well in robotics. Here, researchers build soft actuators that can bend, curl, and tighten in order to manipulate objects. They begin by injecting liquid elastomer Keep reading