Related papers: Grabbing water
We study experimentally the dynamics of a water droplet on a tilted and vertically oscillating rigid fibre. As we vary the frequency and amplitude of the oscillations the droplet transitions between different modes: harmonic pumping,…
This work proposes a novel generative design tool for passive grippers -- robot end effectors that have no additional actuation and instead leverage the existing degrees of freedom in a robotic arm to perform grasping tasks. Passive…
Inspired by the huge droplets attached on cypress tree leaf tips after rain, we find that a bent fibre can hold significantly more water in the corner than a horizontally placed fibre (typically up to three times or more). The maximum…
Evaporating colloidal droplets have long been used as model systems to understand capillarity, interfacial transport, and particle assembly, most prominently through the coffee ring effect. In classical descriptions, suspended particles are…
Experimental methods allow the shape and chemical composition of solid surfaces to be controlled at a mesoscopic level. Exposing such structured substrates to a gas close to coexistence with its liquid can produce quite distinct adsorption…
Several species of plants have raindrop-sized flowers that catch raindrops opportunistically in order to spread their 0.3-mm seeds distances of over 1 m. In the following fluid dynamics video, we show examples of these plants and some of…
Liquids under confinement differ in behavior from their bulk counterparts and can acquire properties that are specific to the confined phase and linked to the nature and structure of the host matrix. While confined liquid water is not a new…
We introduce a new concept for the manipulation of fluid flow around three-dimensional bodies. Inspired by transformation optics, the concept is based on a mathematical idea of coordinate transformations and physically implemented with…
The bottle-flip challenge -- the upright landing of a partially filled bottle after tossing and flipping it in the air -- unexpectedly became a viral mechanics exercise. Through high-speed visualization, we evidence that fluid content…
A liquid drop impacting a dry solid surface with sufficient kinetic energy will splash, breaking apart into numerous secondary droplets. This phenomenon shows many similarities to forced wetting, including the entrainment of air at the…
Many objects in nature and industry are wrapped in a thin sheet to enhance their chemical, mechanical, or optical properties. There are similarly a variety of methods for wrapping, from pressing a film onto a hard substrate, to using…
The mechanism of fluid slip on a solid surface has been linked to surface diffusion, by which mobile adsorbed fluid molecules perform hops between adsorption sites. However, slip velocity arising from this surface hopping mechanism has been…
When droplets impact fibrous media, the liquid can be captured by the fibers or contact then break away. Previous studies have shown that the efficiency of drop capture by a rigid fiber depends on the impact velocity and defined a threshold…
Conventional fluid-driven soft grippers typically depend on external sources, which limit portability and long-term autonomy. This work introduces a self-contained soft gripper with fixed size that operates solely through internal liquid…
Parallel assemblies of slender structures forming brushes are common in our daily life from sweepers to pastry brushes and paintbrushes. This type of porous objects can easily trap liquid in their interstices when removed from a liquid…
We report that liquids perform self-propelled motion when they are placed in contact with hot surfaces with asymmetric (ratchet-like) topology. The pumping effect is observed when the liquid is in the film-boiling regime, for many liquids…
A new wave energy device features a submerged ballasted air bag connected at the top to a rigid float. Under wave action, the bag expands and contracts, creating a reciprocating air flow through a turbine between the bag and another volume…
Recently, there is much interest in droplet condensation on soft or liquid/liquid-like substrates. Droplets can deform soft and liquid interfaces resulting in a wealth of phenomena not observed on hard, solid surfaces (e.g., increased…
We investigate the dripping of liquids around solid surfaces in the regime of inertial flows, a situation commonly encountered with the so-called "teapot effect". We demonstrate that surface wettability is an unexpected key factor in…
It is shown that low Reynolds number fluid flows can cause suspended particles to respond as though they were in an equilibrium system with an effective potential. This general result follows naturally from the fact that different methods…