FYFD

Tag: fluids as art

  • Spinning Paint

    Spinning Paint

    Several years ago Fabian Oefner started spinning paint, and it’s been a perennial favorite online ever since. Here the Slow Mo Guys revisit their own paint-spinning antics by super-sizing their set-up. In some respects, it’s a little dissatisfying; as with their first time around, they don’t moderate the drill speed at all, so after the initial spin-up, the centrifugal acceleration is so strong that it just shreds the paint instead of showing off the interplay between the acceleration and surface tension’s efforts to keep the paint together.

    In their largest experiment, though, the Slow Mo Guys get some interesting physics. Here there’s only a single slot for paint to exit, so the set-up doesn’t lose all its paint at once. The centrifugal acceleration flings the paint out in sheets that stretch into ligaments and then tear into droplets as they move further out. But there’s some more complicated phenomena, too. Notice the bubble-like shapes forming in the yellow paint on the lower right. These are known as bags, and they form because of the relative speed of the paint and the air it’s moving through. This is actually the same thing that happens to falling drops of rain! (Video and image credit: The Slow Mo Guys)

  • Sunset Flow

    Sunset Flow

    Day and night mix in this flow visualization of watercolor pigments and ferrofluid. The former, as suggested by their name, are water-based, whereas ferrofluids typically contain an oil base. This means the two fluids are immiscible. Like oil and vinegar in salad dressing, the only way to mix them is to break one into tiny droplets floating in the other. This is what happens near their boundary, where brightly-colored paint droplets float in a network of dark channels. To the right, the paint and ferrofluid have been swirled around to create viscous mixing patterns among the paint colors with occasional intrusions of thin ferrofluid fingers. (Image credit: G. Elbert)

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    Paint Balloons

    The Slow Mo Guys have a history of personal sacrifice in the name of cool high-speed footage, and their Super Slow Show is no exception. In a recent segment, both Dan and Gav were knocked flat by giant swinging balloons of paint, and, as you might expect, the splashes are spectacular. The speed is just right for some of the paint to form nice sheets before momentum pulls them into long ligaments. Eventually, that momentum overcomes surface tension’s ability to keep the paint together, and the paint separates into droplets, which, as you see below, rain down on the hapless victims. (Video and image credit: The Slow Mo Guys)

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    “Dance Dance”

    Artist Thomas Blanchard is no stranger to fluid dynamics. His previous short films focused on mixtures of oil and paint, but in “Dance Dance,” flowers are front and center. There are obvious splashes of color and clouds of diffusion toward the end of the video, but fluid dynamics are there throughout. The oozing, inexorable march of ice crystallizing over petals and leaves has a fluidity that’s heightened by timelapse. It’s a reminder that this phase change is unsteady and full of shifts too subtle to notice in real-time. In the second act, we see flowers blossoming in timelapse, bursting open dramatically before settling in with a subtle shift of their stamens. Motions like these are driven by the flow of fluids inside the plant. By shifting small concentrations of chemicals, plants drive the water in their cells via osmosis. This pumps up cells that cause the petals to spread and unfurl. (Video and image credit: T. Blanchard; via Colossal)

  • Chemistry in Infrared

    Chemistry in Infrared

    Many chemical reactions, and the flows that accompany them, are invisible to the human eye. But in infrared wavelengths those same events are vibrant and energetic. In this video from the Beauty of Science group, various chemical reactions are shown in visible and IR wavelengths, revealing very different perspectives on the same thing. Many of the reactions are exothermic, meaning that they produce heat as they occur. Because of this the thermal imaging shows where the most intense reaction is occurring at a given time. Other areas gradually darken as diffusion and flow move and dilute the heat energy released. (Video and image credit: Beauty of Science, source)

  • “Moving Creates Vortices and Vortices Create Movement”

    “Moving Creates Vortices and Vortices Create Movement”

    A new interactive installation by the Japanese art collective teamLab uses the movement of visitors to drive vortex motion. Entitled “Moving Creates Vortices and Vortices Create Movement,” the installation uses projectors in a mirror room to create the sensation of an infinite, indoor ocean that’s constantly churned by the paths visitors take. In the absence of motion, the room slowly fades to darkness. The installation is currently in the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, and will be open until April 15th, 2018. (Image credit: teamLab; via Colossal; submitted by jshoer)

    P.S. – Winter Olympic coverage will start on Monday, February 12th! – Nicole

  • Water Calligraphy

    Water Calligraphy

    Artist Seb Lester creates calligraphy using ink and water, but not in the way you might expect. After writing in water, the artist applies ink a drop at a time, allowing fluid forces to spread it. There are a few effects at play here. Molecular diffusion – the random motion of molecules – can help two fluids mix, but it’s an extremely slow process. The fast, dramatic spread of ink seen in the video is more likely a Marangoni effect. The water and ink have different surface tensions, creating a gradient in surface tension that depends on the relative concentration of the two fluids. Gradients in surface tension create flow, which is why the ink spreads most quickly when it’s applied in an area that’s pure water. For similar physics, check out maze-solving soaps and the title sequence for “Marco Polo”.  (Video and image credit: S. Lester, source; via Gizmodo)

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    “Breathe”

    In black and white, the towering power of a thunderstorm looks almost apocalyptic. Photographer Mike Olbinski’s latest storm timelapse, “Breathe,” features roiling turbulence, distant downpours, and eerie mammatus clouds. Supercell thunderstorms churn and rotate over empty horizons. Billowing cumulus clouds condense from bright skies. Flashes of lightning reveal the outlines of massive thunderheads. It’s a beautiful glimpse of atmospheric fluid dynamics in action, with every texture magnified and enhanced by the stark black and white palette. (Video and image credit: M. Olbinski; via Gizmodo)

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    Water Walking, Exploding Droplets, and Colliding Vortices

    Every year I look forward to the APS DFD conference in November. It brings thousands of researchers together to share the latest in fluid dynamics. So much goes on in those three days that it’s impossible to capture, but last year I teamed up with Tom Crawford and the Journal of Fluid Mechanics to attempt just that. We interviewed 50 researchers on their projects, and we’ll be bringing you their work, in their words, each month leading up to the 2018 APS DFD meeting.

    This first video focuses on some of the awesome entries to the 2017 Gallery of Fluid Motion. Watch to learn about oil droplets that go flying everywhere when you’re cooking, balls that walk on water, the water music of Vanuatu and more! To see the videos we discuss and all the other entries, go to gfm.aps.org. (Video credit: N. Sharp and T. Crawford)

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    The Foggy Grand Canyon

    On occasion in the late fall and early winter, the Grand Canyon can fill with clouds of fog. This occurs when a layer of warm air traps cold, moist air inside the canyon, creating what’s known as a temperature inversion. The trapped air’s moisture condenses into fog, creating the appearance of a cloud sea lapping at the canyon walls. Such inversions often proceed a big snowstorm, as shown in this video. (Video and image credit: H. Mehmedinovic / SKYGLOWPROJECT; via Gizmodo)