Rotating flows are full of delightful surprises. Here, the folks at the UCLA SpinLab demonstrate the power a little buoyancy has to liven up a flow. Their backdrop is a Keep reading
Tag: rotating flow
The Best of FYFD 2024
Welcome to another year and another look back at FYFD’s most popular posts. (You can find previous editions, too, for 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, and Keep reading
How Magnetic Fields Shape Core Flows
The Earth’s inner core is a hot, solid iron-rich alloy surrounded by a cooler, liquid outer core. The convection and rotation in this outer core creates our magnetic fields, but Keep reading
Trapped in a Taylor Column
The world’s largest iceberg, A23a, is stuck. It’s not beached; there are a thousand meters or more of water beneath it. But thanks to a quirk of the Earth’s rotation, Keep reading
Stopping a Bottle’s Bounce
A few years ago, the Internet was abuzz with water bottle flips. Experimentalists are still looking at how they can arrest a partially fluid-filled container’s bounce, but now they’re rotating Keep reading
Spinning Liquids With Lego
One way to explore the effects of spinning liquids at high-speeds is to build an expensive and precise lab apparatus. Another method is to raid the Lego bin. Here, a Keep reading
The Tea Leaves Effect
If you’ve ever stirred a cup of tea with loose leaves in it, you’ve probably noticed that the leaves tend to swirl into the center of the cup in a Keep reading
Rotating Waves of Grains
Rotating drums are a popular way to explore granular dynamics. Here, researchers fill a cylinder (seen below) with heavy grains and a low-viscosity fluid, then rotate the mixture about a Keep reading
Spinning Off-Axis
To make a vortex in the laboratory, researchers typically set a tank on a rotating platform and allow the water to drain out a hole in the center of the Keep reading
Mixing the Immiscible
Immiscible liquids — like oil and water — do not combine easily. Typically, with enough effort, you can create an emulsion — a mixture formed from droplets of one liquid Keep reading