English

Liquid acrobatics

Fluid Dynamics 2009-09-29 v1

Abstract

We experiment with injecting a continuous stream of gas into a shallow liquid, similar to how one might blow into a straw placed at the bottom of a near-empty drink. By varying the angle of the straw (here a metal needle), we observe a variety of dynamics, which we film using a high-speed camera. Most noteworthy is an intermediate regime in which cyclical jets erupt from the air-liquid interface and breakup into air-born droplets. These droplets trace out a parabolic trajectory and bounce on the air-liquid interface before eventually coalescing. The shape of each jet, as well as the time between jets, is remarkably similar and leads to droplets with nearly identical trajectories. The following article accompanies the linked fluid dynamics video submitted to the Gallery of Fluid Motion in 2008.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0810.1601,
  title  = {Liquid acrobatics},
  author = {James C. Bird and Howard A. Stone},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0810.1601},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

Accompanies video submission to APS DFD 2008 Gallery of Fluid Motion, low http://ecommons.library.cornell.edu/bitstream/1813/11469/3/Bird_DFD2008_mpeg1.mpg , and high resolution http://ecommons.library.cornell.edu/bitstream/1813/11469/2/Bird_DFD2008_mpeg2.mpg

R2 v1 2026-06-21T11:28:56.081Z