A falling stream of water will naturally break up into droplets via the Plateau-Rayleigh instability. Those droplets are random, unless something like vibration of the nozzle sets their size. In Keep reading
Tag: jets
Cavitation-Induced Microjets
In cavitation, tiny bubbles of vapor form and collapse in a liquid, often sending shock waves ricocheting. In most occurrences beyond the lab, cavitation bubbles aren’t a solo act; many Keep reading
Pressure At The Dam
Hydrostatic pressure in a fluid is based on the fluid’s depth. You’ll rarely see a more dramatic example of that power than with a water release from a dam. Here Keep reading
Breaking Up Is(n’t) Hard to Do
Engineers often need to break a liquid jet up into droplets. To do so quickly, they surround the jet with a ring of fast-moving air in a set-up known as Keep reading
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, Keep reading
Bubbles Rising
Here we see high-speed video of air bubbles rising through sesame oil. The flow rate of air is just right for one bubble to catch up to and merge with Keep reading
Decelerating Jets
For more than a century, scientists have been fascinated by the jet that forms after a drop impacts a liquid. In this study, researchers tracked fluorescent particles in the fluid Keep reading
Jets Beneath Leidenfrost Drops
When a droplet impacts, it’s not unusual for converging ripples to form an upward jet, like the one seen here. But under the right circumstances, jets can form downward, too. Keep reading
Coalescing Drops
This year’s Nikon Small World in Motion competition was won by fluid dynamics! The first place video shows droplets on a superhydrophobic surface coalescing. The droplets are a mixture of Keep reading
Surface Jets in Coalescing Droplets
What goes on when droplets merge is tough to observe, even with a high-speed camera. There are many factors at play: any momentum in the droplets, surface tension, gravity, and Keep reading