Drizzle honey or syrup from high enough, and you’ll see it coil like a liquid rope. This feature of viscous fluids also extends to polymer-filled viscoelastic fluids. But recent work Keep reading
Tag: non-Newtonian fluids
Aging Fluids
If you’ve ever left a sealed container of Playdoh untouched for months, you know that there’s a big difference between the fresh stuff and what’s left in that can. Aging Keep reading
Sundews Weaponize Viscoelasticity
In nutrient-poor soils, carnivorous plants like the cape sundew supplement their diets by eating insects. To entice their prey, the cape sundew secretes droplets of sugary water. But unwary insects Keep reading
Branching Gels
If you sandwich a viscous fluid between two plates, then pull the plates apart, you’ll often get a complex branching pattern that forms as air pushes its way into the Keep reading
Spin Cycle
Rotational motion is a great way to break up liquids, as anyone who’s watched a dog shake itself dry can attest. That same centrifugal force is what allows this rotary Keep reading
Modeling Oobleck
Oobleck – that peculiarly behaved mixture of cornstarch and water – continues to be a favorite of children and researchers both. Oobleck flows like a liquid when deformed slowly, but try Keep reading
Avoiding Shear Thickening
Many substances – like the cornstarch and water mixture above – exhibit a property called shear-thickening. In these fluids, deforming them quickly causes the viscosity to increase dramatically. That shear-thickening occurs when particles Keep reading
Viscoelasticity and Liquid Armor
One proposed method for improving bulletproof armor is adding a layer of non-Newtonian fluid that can help absorb and dissipate the kinetic energy of impact. Thus far researchers have focused Keep reading
Oobleck Under Impact
Fluids like air and water are Newtonian, which means that the way they deform does not depend on how the force on them gets applied. Many other fluids, however, are Keep reading
Bioinspiration, Underwater Sniffing, and Mixing Toothpaste
In this month’s FYFD/JFM video, we explore some intersections between the animal kingdom and our own lives. Learn about designing better buildings with inspiration from termites; see the fascinating superpower Keep reading