At the bottom of ponds, nematodes and other creatures swim in a world of mud. They squirm their way through a sediment of dirt particles suspended in water. Mud, of Keep reading
Tag: fluidization
Granular Instabilities
Granular mixtures show surprising similarities to fluids, even though their underlying physics differ. The latest example of this is a Rayleigh-Taylor-like instability that occurs when heavy particles sit atop lighter Keep reading
A Hot Tub, Turned Fluidized Bed
Fluidized beds continue to be all the rage among science YouTubers, but Mark Rober supersizes his by turning a broken hot tub into a massive bath of bubbling sand. His Keep reading
Build Your Own Fluidized Bed
Previously, we featured some GIFs of bubbling, fluidized sand (below). Inspired by the same video, Dianna from Physics Girl decided to build her own set-up, discovering along the way that it’s Keep reading
Turning Sand Into a Fluid
Pumping air through a bed of sand can make the grains behave just like a liquid. This process is called fluidization. Air introduced at the bottom of the bed forces Keep reading
Asteroid Impact
I often receive questions about how fluids react to extremely hard and fast impacts. Some people wonder if there’s a regime where a fluid like water will react like a Keep reading
Particle-Tracking in Granular Flows
One of the challenges of experimental fluid dynamics is gathering sufficient data in environments that can be fast-changing, visually dense, and sometimes harsh. Ideally, researchers want to gather as much Keep reading
Fluidized Sand
What’s shown in this video are some pretty spectacular demonstrations of fluidization, where a gas is introduced at the bottom of a bed of granular particles–like sand. At the critical Keep reading