Dynamics of a Camphoric Acid boat at the air-water interface
Abstract
We report experiments on an agarose gel tablet loaded with camphoric acid (c-boat) set into self-motion by interfacial tension gradients at the air-water interface. We observe three distinct modes of c-boat motion: harmonic mode where the c-boat speed oscillates sinusoidally in time, a steady mode where the c-boat maintains constant speed, and a relaxation oscillation mode where the c-boat maintains near-zero speed between sudden jumps in speed and position at regular time intervals. Whereas all three modes have been separately reported before in different systems, we show they belong to a common description. Through control of the air-water surface tension with Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate (SDS), we experimentally deduce the three self-propulsive modes result from surface tension difference between Camphoric Acid (CA) and the ambient surroundings.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1701.06775,
title = {Dynamics of a Camphoric Acid boat at the air-water interface},
author = {V. S. Akella and D. K. Singh and S. Mandre and M. M. Bandi},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1701.06775},
year = {2018}
}