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Tag: droplets

  • Urinal Dynamics Win Ig Nobel Prize

    Urinal Dynamics Win Ig Nobel Prize

    Thirteen years ago, I made a prediction that work on how to avoid urinal splashback would win an Ig Nobel Prize. Today, I am, at last, vindicated. Randy Hurd, Zhao Pan, Tadd Truscott, and Kaveeshan Thurairajah shared the 2026 Ig Nobel Prize in Physics for their work designing a splash-free urinal.

    The culmination of this decade-plus of research are two urinal designs, the Cornucopia (“Cornucopeea”) and the Nautilus (“Nauti-Loo”). Both designs minimize splash, in part, through their geometry. As you may have noticed when rinsing dishes, having a stream of droplets hit a surface at a high impact angle creates lots of splash. But at a low impact angle, very little splash occurs. The team took this observation and created designs that minimized impact angle no matter where a user aimed.

    How splashback varies with impact angle. High and medium impact angles (left and middle, respectively) generate a lot of splashing from a stream of impacting droplets. In contrast, below a critical impact angle, the splashing is negligible (right).
    How splashback varies with impact angle. High and medium impact angles (left and middle, respectively) generate a lot of splashing from a stream of impacting droplets. In contrast, below a critical impact angle, the splashing is negligible (right).

    Naturally, they tested the two new designs, alongside two existing urinal designs, finding that the new urinals reduced splashing by as much as 95% across a range of flow rates and user heights. Although the Cornucopia was the least splashy urinal, the team gave the Nautilus an overall edge because its design is easier to clean and works for children, adults, and wheelchair users.

    Considering the estimated 1 million liters of urine contemporary urinals splash across U.S. restrooms daily, the Nautilus could save significant labor and cleaning costs, if implemented. (Image credits: urinals and experiment – K. Thurairajah et al., poster – R. Hurd et al.; research credit: K. Thurairajah et al. and R. Hurd et al.)

    P.S. – As indicated, I’ve followed this work for a long time. In addition to this post, we did a webcast (10 years ago, yikes!) that touched on the topic. But my most in-depth coverage of the story is still to appear in print; you’ll get to enjoy the whole tale–stretching all the way back to 2012–in a chapter of my forthcoming book. More on that soon! In the meantime, please enjoy this gem of a scientific poster from the project’s early days in 2013:

    One of the best research posters of all time, designed to look like it's been written on a tiled bathroom wall. The text reads, "Confessions of a Sitzpinkler. Though Sitzpinklers, men who sit to urinate, are held in low-esteem within the male community, they have reasonable scientific justification for their actions. Due to the Plateau-Rayleigh instability, a simulated average male urine stream breaks into droplets approximately 15-20 cm after emerging from the urethra. For a typical male and toilet, the opening of the urethra is 13 cm or less above the surface of the water when sitting. The urine stream does not fully transition into droplets before it enters the water as shown in the image on the left. This stream-surface interaction causes bubble entrainment and limited splashing. The resulting satellite droplets lack the necessary momentum to rise above the rim of a typical toilet, not to mention that they toilet bowl is covered when sitting. In contrast, the average male urinates from a standing height of 64 cm above the water surface with the urine stream breaking into droplets 44-49 cm above the water surface. In the image on the right, the rapid procession of droplets impacts the surface violently, creating splash curtains, deep cavities and jets. These dynamic events collectively contribute to the emission of relatively high-momentum satellite droplets, capable of traversing beyond the rim of a typical toilet bowl. Sitzpinklers around the world should rest easy knowing that the hygienic benefits of sitting during urination far outweigh the negative social implications."
    One of the best research posters of all time, designed to look like it’s been written on a tiled bathroom wall. The text reads, “Confessions of a Sitzpinkler. Though Sitzpinklers, men who sit to urinate, are held in low-esteem within the male community, they have reasonable scientific justification for their actions. Due to the Plateau-Rayleigh instability, a simulated average male urine stream breaks into droplets approximately 15-20 cm after emerging from the urethra. For a typical male and toilet, the opening of the urethra is 13 cm or less above the surface of the water when sitting. The urine stream does not fully transition into droplets before it enters the water as shown in the image on the left. This stream-surface interaction causes bubble entrainment and limited splashing. The resulting satellite droplets lack the necessary momentum to rise above the rim of a typical toilet, not to mention that they toilet bowl is covered when sitting.

    In contrast, the average male urinates from a standing height of 64 cm above the water surface with the urine stream breaking into droplets 44-49 cm above the water surface. In the image on the right, the rapid procession of droplets impacts the surface violently, creating splash curtains, deep cavities and jets. These dynamic events collectively contribute to the emission of relatively high-momentum satellite droplets, capable of traversing beyond the rim of a typical toilet bowl.

    Sitzpinklers around the world should rest easy knowing that the hygienic benefits of sitting during urination far outweigh the negative social implications.”
  • Freezing Via Ice Bridge

    Freezing Via Ice Bridge

    For frost to spread on a surface, individual water droplets freeze and then spread the freezing front to a nearby droplet. Frequently that happens through an ice bridge that connects one droplet to the next. On hydrophilic surfaces, the bridge grows along the surface, slowly connected one droplet to the next and the next until the entire surface is covered in frost. On superhydrophobic surfaces, frost still spreads via ice bridge, but those ice bridges are suspended in the air, cantilevered out from the frozen droplet. You can watch the process in the image below.

    The researchers found that frost was later to form and slower to spread on these superhydrophobic surfaces, which could be valuable for applications like the heat exchanger found in heat pumps. Once a heat exchanger’s finned surface is frost-covered, its efficiency plummets. The team suggests that coating these surfaces to be superhydrophobic could help keep them operating efficiently longer in cold and humid conditions. (Image credit: frost – K. Shimizu, experiment – S. Yang et al.; research credit: S. Yang et al.; via Physics World)

    Animation of a suspended ice bridge growing between water droplets on a superhydrophobic surface.
    Animation of a suspended ice bridge growing between water droplets on a superhydrophobic surface.
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  • Representing Rain’s Microphysics

    Representing Rain’s Microphysics

    Realistically modeling rainfall remains an extremely difficult problem. To be practical, results have to be on the scale of kilometers; no one is looking to find out whether rain will fall from one specific cloud over their head. But making that prediction depends on physics that happens at the microscale, where droplets tens of microns in size are condensing, colliding, and eventually growing large enough to fall as rain. A new study takes a look at three machine-learning models that could help describe those microscale physics with less computational overhead.

    The researchers used three different algorithms, all trained on high-quality simulations of microdroplet physics. The goal here was to represent the complex, nonlinear physics reflected in those results with an algorithm that’s less complicated and less computationally expensive than the methods used to create the training data. The team then tested the trained algorithms to see how they performed in conditions that were different than their training data.

    They found that the model with the best performance–in terms of giving more accurate predictions in the test cases–was actually the simplest of the three models. So it may be possible to get reasonable results for rain microphysics from simpler, easier-to-compute algorithms. The team does warn, though, that all of the models need more work before they’d be ready to add to commercial-grade weather prediction software. (Image credit: J. Fowler; research credit: E. de Jong et al.; via Eos)

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  • Capillary Slinkies

    Capillary Slinkies

    Nature is full of helical fibers, including in plants and bird feathers. In this study, researchers explore how these soft springs react to droplets. When the pitch of the spring (roughly speaking, the spacing between coils) is small, droplets can flow down in a plug (not shown). But as the pitch increases, droplets can take on a caterpillar-like (or, eruciform) shape. These drops descend quickly, in part, the team found, because internal flows within the droplet help it along.

    A caterpillar-shaped droplet slides down a soft spring.
    A caterpillar-shaped droplet slides down a soft spring.

    Other drops maintain a spherical shape as they descend the widely-spaced coils of the spring. These drops tend to spin around the coil as they go, with their center of mass actually moving side-to-side as they descend. (Image and research credit: B. Bhatt and A. Carlson)

    A sphere-shaped droplet slides down a soft spring.
    A sphere-shaped droplet slides down a soft spring.
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    Blowing Droplets Apart

    In raindrops, ink-jet printing, and spray painting, droplets get broken apart by the air flowing around them. Here, researchers investigate how a jet of fluid can push a droplet from its perch, or–with enough momentum–shatter the droplet. There are some lovely flow visualizations here; it’s especially cool to see the starting vortex ring of the jet push and deform the droplet. (Video and image credit: S. Jain et al.)

  • Droplets Can Climb Sugar Fibers

    Droplets Can Climb Sugar Fibers

    In nature, droplets and fibers can meet on a spider’s web, on fur, or on a dew-gathering cactus. Here, researchers explore what happens when the droplet can dissolve the fiber it’s suspended on. As the authors note, a lumberjack who cuts the branch they sit on makes a fatal choice. The droplet sees a different outcome.

    As the droplet hangs on the fiber, it dissolves the fiber’s sugar. Dense, sugar-laden water flows downward along the fiber and a replenishing upward flow goes along the droplet’s exterior. Because the sugar concentration is lower near the top of the drop, the fiber thins most quickly there.

    A droplet at the end of a sugar fiber dissolves the fiber, then "jumps" up to the next intact section.
    A droplet hanging at the end of a sugar fiber dissolves the fiber and then “jumps” upward to the next intact portion.

    The droplet has capillary forces along its top and bottom, where it meets the fiber. At the top, the droplet is free to expand, wetting more fiber, but the bottom of the drop is pinned to the fiber. The excess capillary force there goes into compressing the fiber.

    As soon as the fiber breaks, the capillary force is no longer balanced, and the droplet jumps upward. If the drop and fiber are sized just right, the drop will jump upward enough to stay attached to the fiber instead of falling off. (Image and research credit: S. Dorbolo et al.)

  • Dropping Oobleck

    Dropping Oobleck

    Oobleck is a peculiar substance. Formed from a suspension of cornstarch particles in water, it can flow like a liquid at low shear rates or jam into a solid under impact. Here, researchers explore what happens to a droplet of oobleck impacting a surface. As they expected, the team found that dilute drops could spread like a normal liquid during impact (top), and denser suspensions could impact like a solid would (below). But at the right conditions, they found that cornstarch-rich droplets could show liquid-like behavior at high shear rates and transition to solid-like behavior once the shear rate slowed down. (Image and research credit: A. Mobaseri et al.; via APS)

    An oobleck drop impacts and acts mostly solid.
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    Drying Out Microbe-Filled Droplets

    Ocean sprays, coughs, and sneezes are just a few of the ways that droplets full of bacteria and salt can get aloft on a breeze. How do these bacteria stay viable even as their droplet evaporates? That’s the question behind this video’s research.

    When a bacteria-laden droplet or a salt-laden droplet dries, the evaporating droplet’s contact area shrinks, leaving behind only a concentrated lump of bacteria or salt. But when droplets contain both salt and bacteria, the drying droplet’s contact line gets pinned, leaving a larger area stain. The bacteria’s presence seems to promote crystallization of the salt, which–in turn–traps water in isolated spaces, perhaps helping the bacteria stay viable longer. (Video and image credit: R. Ran et al.)

    Animation of three droplets drying out. When all three components–water, salt, and bacteria–are in a droplet, the drying process looks very different.
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    Plucking Droplets

    A sudden breeze can pluck droplets hanging from a stem. Here, researchers recreate that phenomenon in the laboratory. With a close-up view and high-speed images, we can enjoy every detail of the detachment and break-up. As the wire pulls away, it drags a liquid sheet off the droplet. The thicker rims on either side of the sheet eventually collide, creating a jet that stretches, deforms, and, at last, breaks. (Video and image credit: D. Maity et al.)

    Animation of two droplets getting plucked, one made of glycerin+water (left) and one of water (right).
    Animation of two droplets getting plucked, one made of glycerin+water (left) and one of water (right).
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    Bouncing on a Wave

    On a vibrating fluid, droplets can bounce and interact in complex ways. Here, researchers demonstrate some of the peculiar dynamics of these wave-guided droplets, showing how they can do things like pair up in waltzes. To keep the droplets from coalescing with one another, they perform their experiments in a pressurized chamber; the higher air pressure makes it harder for the air film between droplets to drain during a collision, making the droplets unable to coalesce. Under these conditions, the authors show that the droplet-wave system has quantum-like statistics. (Video and image credit: J. Clampett et al.)

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