When a water drop hits a surface that’s much hotter than its boiling point, part of it will vaporize immediately. Depending on the temperature, this Leidenfrost effect can be a Keep reading
Tag: atomization
Breaking Up Is(n’t) Hard to Do
Engineers often need to break a liquid jet up into droplets. To do so quickly, they surround the jet with a ring of fast-moving air in a set-up known as Keep reading
Shattering With Resonance
Resonance is a phenomenon that is both familiar and somewhat mysterious. It takes place when a system is excited near its natural frequency. In this case, we’re seeing a mechanical Keep reading
Ultrasonic Vibrations
Ultrafast vibrations can break up droplets, mix fluids, and even tear voids in a liquid. Here, the Slow Mo Guys demonstrate each of these using an ultrasonic homogenizer, a piece Keep reading
Spin Cycle
Rotational motion is a great way to break up liquids, as anyone who’s watched a dog shake itself dry can attest. That same centrifugal force is what allows this rotary Keep reading
Streaming Fire
I’m just going to start this one with a blanket statement: DO NOT TRY THIS. Instead, enjoy the fact that the Internet enables us to enjoy the sight of burning gasoline in Keep reading
Breaking Up Drops
Lots of applications – from rocket engines to ink jet printing – require breaking large droplets into smaller ones, so there are many methods to do this. Some techniques rely Keep reading
Breaking With a Wave
For rocket combustion and other applications, like watering your lawn with a hose, a stream of fluid may need to be broken up into droplets. While simply spraying a liquid Keep reading
Using Air to Break Up Jets
One method of breaking a liquid into droplets, or atomizing it, uses a slow liquid jet surrounded by an annulus of fast-moving gas. The gas along the outside of the Keep reading
Breaking Up
Liquid sheets break down in a process known as atomization. Above are top and side views of a liquid sheet created by two identical liquid jets impacting head-on. The jets Keep reading