UCLA Spinlab has another great video demonstrating the effects of rotation on a fluid. In a non-rotating fluid, flow over an obstacle is typically three-dimensional, with flow moving over as well as around the object. But in a steadily rotating fluid, as shown in the latter half of the video, the flow only moves around the obstacle, not over it. This non-intuitive behavior is part of the Taylor-Proudman theorem, which shows that flow around an obstacle in a rapidly rotating fluid will be two-dimensional and confined to planes perpendicular to the axis of rotation. (For the mathematically-inclined, Wikipedia does have a short derivation.) This 2D flow creates what are called Taylor columns over the obstacle. The Taylor column is like an imaginary extension of the original obstacle, turning the puck into a tall cylinder, and it’s real enough to flow, which diverts around it as though the column were there. (Video credit: UCLA Spinlab)
Videos
Reconfigurable Liquid Metal
Terminator 2’s T-1000, a liquid metal robot capable of changing its shape at will, just became a little less far-fetched. Researchers at NC State have reported a new method for controlling the form of a liquid gallium alloy. Surface tension governs the shape a liquid assumes when it is not confined by a container, and, although adding surfactants can slightly lower the surface tension, it does not substantially alter the liquid’s shape. Adding soap to water lets one make bubbles, but surface tension keeps the bubbles spherical no matter how much soap you add. Instead, these researchers control the surface tension of the liquid metal using a mild voltage. Applying a voltage creates (or removes) an oxide layer on the liquid metal’s surface, thereby altering the surface tension. By controlling the formation of the oxide layer, the researchers can change the surface tension from approximately 7x that of water to nearly zero. The video above demonstrates some of the liquid shape control this lets them achieve. (VIdeo credit: M. Dickey et al.; research: M. Khan et al.; via PopSci)
Crow Instability
Behind airplanes in flight, water vapor from the engine exhaust will sometimes condense in the wingtip vortices, thereby forming visible contrails. The two initially parallel vortex lines are unstable and any small perturbation to them–a slight crosswind, for example–will cause an instability known as the Crow instability. The contrails become wavy, with the amplitude of the wave growing exponentially in time due to interactions between the two vortices. Eventually, the vortex lines can touch and pinch off into vortex rings. The effect is also quite noticeable when smoke generators are used on a plane, and there are some great examples in this air show video between 3:41:00 and 3:44:00. (Video credit: M. Landy-Gyebnar; h/t to Urs)
The Archer Fish’s Arrow
Archer fish hunt by shooting jets of water at their prey to knock them into the water where the fish can eat them. Previous research showed that the archer fish’s projectile jet is pulsed such that the water released at a later time has a greater velocity. This makes the jet bunch up so that a ball of liquid hits the prey with greater force than the jet would otherwise. A recently released paper shows that the archer fish actively adjust their liquid jets in order to strike targets at different distances while maintaining this bunching effect. To control the jets, the fish adjust both how long they jet and what speed they impart to the fluid by changing how they open and close their mouths. (VIdeo credit: Nature; research credit: P. Gerullis and S. Schuster; via phys.org; submitted by @jchawner)
Antibubble Vortex Rings
Bubbles are familiar, but antibubbles are a bit more unusual. An antibubble typically has a liquid-air-liquid interface, with a thin shell of air separating a liquid droplet from the surrounding fluid. Although they look rather like bubbles, antibubbles behave differently. Antibubbles are, for example, very sensitive to pressure changes. A sinking antibubble like the one in the video above, experiences a higher pressure on its lower face. This pressure compresses the gas shell and thins it on the bottom. The air shell bursts at the thin point and the antibubble collapses, generating two vortex rings and a small, buoyantly rising bubble. (Video credit: S. Dorbolo et al.)
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The Physics of Sneezing
Sneezing can be a major factor in the spread of some illnesses. Not only does sneezing spew out a cloud of tiny pathogen-bearing droplets, but it also releases a warm, moist jet of air. Flows like this that combine both liquid and gas phases are called multiphase flows, and they can be a challenge to study because of the interactions between the phases. For example, the buoyancy of the air jet helps keep smaller droplets aloft, allowing them to travel further or even get picked up and spread by environmental systems. Researchers hope that studying the fluid dynamics and mathematics of these turbulent multiphase clouds will help predict and control the spread of pathogens. Check out the Bourouiba research group for more. (Video credit: Science Friday)
Soap Film Physics
Soap films consist predominantly of water, yet their thin, virtually two-dimensional nature is impossible for water alone to achieve. The small amount of added soap acts as a surfactant, lowering the surface tension of the fluid and preventing it from bursting into droplets. When forming a film, the soap molecules align themselves along the outer surfaces of the film, with their hydrophilic heads among the water molecules and their hydrophobic tails oriented outward. For the most part, the water molecules stay sandwiched between the surfactant layers, forming a film only about as thick as the wavelength of visible light. In fact, the psychedelic colors of a soap film are directly related to the film’s thickness with the black regions being the thinnest. The video above shows a horizontal soap film at the microscopic scale and some of the dynamics exist therein. (Video credit: J. Hart)
Seahorse Hunting
Those who have observed the languid pace of seahorses or seadragons swimming might think these fish only hunt slow prey. In fact, the tiny crustaceans on which they feed are extremely quick, capable of velocities over 500 body lengths per second. Instead of speed, the seahorse relies on stealth to capture its prey, as shown in the holographic video above. Seahorses use a pivot method to feed, simultaneously shifting their snouts up and sucking water in to catch their target. But this method of feeding only works for distances of about 1 mm. To get that close in the first place, the seahorse must approach its prey without alerting it. Researchers found that both the seahorse’s head shape and its natural posture create a hydrodynamic quiet zone just off the seahorse’s snout, directly in its strike zone. Fluid velocity and deformation rates in this region are significantly lower than those around the rest of the seahorse’s face when it moves, allowing the fish to sneak up on its prey. These adaptations are remarkably effective, too; the researchers observed that the seahorses were able to position themselves within 1mm of their prey without alerting them 84% of the time. (Video credit: B. Gemmell et al.; via Discover)
Water-Based Tractor Beam
Researchers in Australia have demonstrated a “tractor beam” capable of manipulating floating objects from a distance using surface waves on water. And, unlike some research, you can try to replicate this result right in the comfort of your own bathtub! When a wave generator oscillates up and down, it creates surface waves that move objects and particles on the water’s surface. When the wave amplitudes are small, the outgoing wave fronts tend to be planar, as in part (a) of the figure above. These planar waves push surface flow away from the wave generator in a central outward jet, and new fluid is entrained from the sides to replace it. This creates the kind of flowfield shown in the streaklines of part (b).Increasing the amplitude of the surface waves drastically changes the surface flow’s behavior. Larger wave amplitudes are more susceptible to instabilities due to the nonlinear nature of the surface waves. This means that the planar wave fronts seen in part (a) break down into a three-dimensional wavefield, like the one shown in part (c). Near the wave-maker, the surface waves now behave chaotically. This pulsating motion ejects surface flow parallel to the wave-maker, which in turn draws fluid and any floating object toward the wave-maker. The corresponding surface flowfield is shown in part (d). The researchers are refining the process, but they hope the physics will one day be useful in applications oil spill clean-up. (Video credit: Australia National University; image and research credit: H. Punzmann et al. 1, 2; via phys.org; submitted by Tracy M)
Hydrophobicity and Viscous Flow
Hydrophobic surfaces are great for creating some wild behaviors with water droplets, but they make neat effects with other liquids, too. The viscous honey in the first segment of this Chemical Bouillon video is a great example. Because the honey doesn’t adhere to the hydrophobic surface, the viscoelastic fluid does not maintain the form it had when drizzled on the surface. Instead, the honey contracts, with surface tension driving Plateau-Rayleigh-like instabilities that break the contracting ligaments apart to form nearly spherical droplets of honey on the surface. (Video credit: Chemical Bouillon)
Researchers in Australia have 