FYFD

Tag: flow visualization

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    The Noisy Gluggle Jug

    The fish-shaped Gluggle Jug makes an impressive set of sounds when tilted for pouring. Steve Mould explores their origin in this video. When liquid is poured from a container, air needs a path in to replace the poured liquid. You’re likely most familiar with this from long-necked bottles, where trying to pour the liquid too quickly results in a glug-glug noise as air bubbles periodically force their way through the bottle neck. The same thing happens in the Gluggle Jug, particularly at the joint between the tail and body of the pitcher. The volume and resonance of the jug’s sounds comes from the shape; the open mouth of the container amplifies the sound of bubbles popping back from the tail region. (Image and video credit: S. Mould)

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    Really, Really Slow Mo Fluids

    Fluid dynamics is a perfect subject for high-speed video. So much goes on at speeds that are far too quick for our eyes and brains to perceive. But there is such a thing as too slow – a concept explored in this Slow Mo Guys video, which takes everyday activities like turning on a faucet or splashing into a pool and slows them down a speed where one second lasts an hour. The video I’ve embedded here isn’t nearly that long; it speeds up and slows down. But if you really want to, you can watch Gav fall into a pool for a full hour. (Image and video credit: The Slow Mo Guys)

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    “Feeding the Sea”

    It’s impressive when a microscopic organism is visible from space, but that’s a regular occurrence for phytoplankton, the tiny marine algae that feed much of the ocean. In this video from NASA Earth Observatory, we travel around the globe, observing phytoplankton blooms and learning about the ecosystems they feed — or destroy.

    Note that many of these satellite images have been color-enhanced to bring out the swirls and eddies of each bloom. The colors are enhanced but the patterns are real. (Image and video credit: NASA Earth Observatory)

  • Microjets and Needle-Free Injection

    Microjets and Needle-Free Injection

    Some people don’t mind needles, and others absolutely detest them. But to replace needles with needle-free injections, we have to understand how high-speed microjets pass through skin. Given skin’s opacity, that’s tough, so researchers are instead using droplets as a model. If we can understand the dynamics of a microjet passing through different kinds of droplets, getting jets of medicine into arms becomes easier.

    Researchers found that jets passed completely through a droplet if they impacted above a critical velocity. For Newtonian droplets, the jet creates a cavity and shoots straight through because the inertia of the impact outweighs the countering force of surface tension. But with viscoelastic drops, the jet goes through, slows down, and gets sucked back into the droplet. In this case, the combination of surface tension and viscoelasticity can, eventually, overpower the jet’s inertia. (Image, research, and submission credit: M. Quetzeri-Santiago et al.)

  • Jupiter in Many Lights

    Jupiter in Many Lights

    Sometimes the key to unraveling a mystery is to observe the phenomenon in different ways. That’s why researchers are increasingly taking advantage of multiple instruments simultaneously observing targets like Jupiter. Here we see the gas giant in three different types of light: infrared, visible, and ultraviolet. Infrared bands reveal the hot and cold regions of Jupiter’s clouds, allowing scientists to identify convective areas. Ultraviolet observations can reveal high-energy processes, like Jupiter’s auroras. And the colors revealed in visible light can give hints about chemical make-up in different regions. But to get a fuller picture, scientists compare all three modes — along with radio signal data from Juno — to understand topics like the planet’s lightning-filled storms. (Image credits: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/NASA/ESA, M.H. Wong and I. de Pater (UC Berkeley) et al.; via Gizmodo)

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    “Stream”

    Roman De Giuli’s short film “Stream” explores a macro world of color and flow, with a few glimpses behind-the-scenes at how the visuals get made. The artistic canvas here is a glass plate; the materials are oil, ink, and water. As simple as the ingredients are, though, the view is complex and enchanting. It’s amazing to see just how much goes on in an area the size of one’s thumb. (Image and video credit: R. De Giuli)

  • Light Painting

    Light Painting

    Light streams from the branches of trees in this series from photographer Vitor Schietti. The effect is created with a combination of fireworks, long-exposure photography, and compositing. I love how the falling sparks create streaklines just like so many flow visualization diagnostics do! Follow more of Schietti’s work on Instagram. (Image credit: V. Schietti; via Colossal)

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    Metallic Magma

    Metallic paint flows like silver lava in this macro video from Chemical Bouillon. The paint has been mixed with an unknown fluid (my guess is alcohol) to produce the flows we see here. My suspicion is that we’re seeing solutal convection where variations in surface tension create convective flow within the liquid. What do you think? (Video and image credit: Chemical Bouillon)

  • Meeting Without Mixing

    Meeting Without Mixing

    When bodies of water meet, they don’t always mix right away. Here we see the confluence of the Back and Hayes Rivers in the Canadian Arctic. The Back River appears as a darker blue-green color compared to the light turquoise Hayes River. The different colors reflect the levels of algae and sediment carried in their waters. As seen in both the aerial and satellite photos here, there’s a distinct line where the two waters meet without mixing, and that line persists for kilometers beyond their initial confluence. Typically, this lack of mixing between bodies of water is caused by differences in temperature, salinity, and turbidity (amount of sediment) that make the density of each river’s water different. (Image credit: top – R. Macdonald/Univ. of Manitoba, bottom – J. Stevens/USGS; via NASA Earth Observatory)

    A satellite photo of the Back and Hayes Rivers shows their distinctly different colors persisting for 10+ kilometers after their confluence.
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    Signs of Spring

    Nothing says, “Goodbye, winter!” quite like watching the ice disappear after a deep freeze. This timelapse video shows ice on Lake Michigan breaking up after a deep freeze. The first chunk to go is a massive plate of ice that moves off in a single large chunk. After that, the break-up takes place on a smaller scale, with individual pieces of ice tracing the flow of local currents. (Video and image credit: WGN News; submitted by ajhir)