Underwater explosions often behave non-intuitively. Here researchers explore the effects of surface explosions by setting off charges at the air/water interface. Initially, an unconfined explosion’s blast wave expands a cavity radially into the water. This cavity collapses back toward the surface from the bottom up, ultimately resulting in a free jet that rebounds above the water level. Confined explosions behave very differently, expanding down the glass tube containing them in a one-dimensional fashion. The cavity never extends beyond the end of the glass tube, likely due to hydrostatic pressure. (Video credit: Adrien Benusiglio, David Quéré, Christophe Clanet)
Tag: cavity
Sandy Jets
When a fluid is vibrated, instabilities can form along its surface. With a sufficient amplitude, voids form inside the fluid and their collapse leads to a jet that shoots out from the fluid. A very different process leads to air cavities forming in a vibrated granular medium, but the jets produced are remarkably similar, as seen in this video. (Video credit: M. Sandtke et al.)
Jets from Hollows
Bubbles rising through a viscous fluid deform and interact. As they collapse into one another, the lower bubble induces a gravity-driven jet that projects upward into the higher bubble. The more elongated the bubble, the faster the jet. The same behavior is seen in the rebound of a cavity at the free surface of a liquid. The authors suggest a universal scaling law for this behavior. (Video credit: T. Seon et al.)