Prior to reaching terminal velocity, a falling droplet typically oscillates between a prolate shape (like an American football about to be kicked) and an oblate one (like that same football Keep reading
Tag: oscillation
Leidenfrost Dynamics
When a liquid impacts a solid heated well above the liquid’s boiling point, droplets can form, levitating on a thin film of vapor that helps insulate them from the heat Keep reading
Space Didgeridoo
This week astronaut Don Pettit is playing with acoustic oscillators on the space station. He and Dan Burbank transform some of their vacuum cleaner tubes into didgeridoo-like instruments. By buzzing Keep reading
Why Walking with Coffee is Tough
Almost everyone is familiar with the problem of coffee or tea sloshing over the sides of a mug as one walks, but this may be the first time researchers have Keep reading
Sloshing Dynamics
[original media no longer available] Sloshing refers to the motion of a liquid inside a moving container, for example, in tanker trucks or inside a spacecraft’s fuel tank. The motion Keep reading
Faces from Laminar Mixing
These images show the laminar mixing that occurs when a flat plate moves up and down in an otherwise motionless fluid. Each face-like snapshot represents a different point in time. Keep reading
Aeroelastic Flutter
Flutter is a rather innocuous term for a potentially dangerous phenomenon that can occur for any flexible structure in a moving flow. Aeroelastic flutter occurs when aerodynamic forces and a structure’s natural Keep reading
Sound and Harmonics
The vibrations we perceive as sound, whether in air, water, or any other fluid, are tiny pressure waves emanating from a source, transmitting like ripples across a pond, and finally Keep reading
Liquid Settling
Despite the strange shapes of the arms on this container, the fluid inside will always settle to a common height. This is because each interconnected section is open to the Keep reading