Related papers: Grabbing water
Writing is an ancient communication technique dating back at least 30,000 years. While even sophisticated contemporary writing techniques hinge on solid surfaces for engraving or the deposition of ink, writing within a liquid medium…
The motion of flexible fibers through structured fluidic environments is ubiquitous in nature and industrial applications. Most often, their dynamics results from the complex interplay between internal elastic stresses, contact forces and…
Contrasting with its sluggish behavior on standard solids, water is extremely mobile on superhydrophobic materials, as shown for instance by the continuous acceleration of drops on tilted water-repellent leaves. For much longer substrates,…
Fluid-suspended microorganisms have evolved different swimming and feeding strategies in order to cope with an environment dominated by viscous effects. For instance ciliated organisms rely on the collective motion of flexible appendices to…
We investigate the mechanics of elastic fibres carrying liquid droplets. In such systems, buckling may localize inside the drop cavity if the fibre is thin enough. This so-called drop-on-coilable-fibre system exhibits a surprising…
This study presents a novel spatially disrupted flow control system inspired by the covert feathers on bird wings. The system is a passive flow control system consisting of multiple feather-inspired flaps that dynamically interact with the…
Soft grippers, for stable grasping of objects, with high compliance could be considered a suitable candidate for replacement of conventional rigid grippers, and in recent years, they have been emerging exponentially in industries. Not only…
A body immersed in a supersaturated fluid like carbonated water can accumulate a dynamic field of bubbles upon its surface. If the body is mobile, the attached bubbles can lift it upward against gravity, but a fluid-air interface can clean…
Wetting phenomena are relevant in several technological applications, particularly those involving hydrophobic or hydrophilic surfaces. Many substrates support multiple wetting states depending on surface conditions or droplet history, a…
To achieve efficient liquid collection, a surface must regulate incoming liquid accumulation with outgoing liquid transport. Often, this can be proposed to be achieved by functionalizing surfaces with non-wetting characteristics. Yet, there…
Capillary forces are involved in a variety of natural phenomena, ranging from droplet breakup to the physics of clouds. The forces from surface tension can also be exploited in industrial application provided the length scales involved are…
In splat painting, a collection of liquid droplets is projected onto the substrate by imposing a controlled acceleration to a paint-loaded brush. To unravel the physical phenomena at play in this artistic technique, we perform a series of…
The water bottle flipping challenge consists of spinning a bottle, partially filled with water, and making it land upright. It is quite a striking phenomenon, since at first sight it appears rather improbable that a tall rotating bottle…
Fascinating in art and science, the ability to float is also captivating and relevant in practical applications, such as Penning and ion traps that are fundamental to quantum computing. In this work, we first reproduce the classic water…
Under partial wetting conditions, making a substrate uniformly rougher enhances the wetting characteristics of the corresponding smooth substrate {--} hydrophilic systems become even more hydrophilic and hydrophobic systems even more…
We consider a porous solid covered with a water film (or with a drop) in situations where the liquid is pumped in, either spontaneously (if the porous medium is hydrophilic) or mechanically (by an external pump). The dynamics of dewetting…
It is well known that a solid (e.g. wood or rubber) can be put under tensile stress by pulling on it. Once a critical stress is overcome, the solid breaks, leaving an empty space. Similarly, due to internal cohesion, a liquid can withstand…
Passive and effective fluid capture and transport at small scale is crucial for industrial and medical applications, especially for the realisation of point-of-care tests. Performing these tests involves several steps including biological…
A floating air bag, ballasted in water, expands and contracts as it heaves under wave action. Connecting the bag to a secondary volume via a turbine transforms the bag into a device capable of generating useful energy from the waves.…
Capillary forces guide the motion of biomolecular condensates, water-borne insects, and breakfast cereal. These surface-mediated interactions can be harnessed to build units into materials with exotic properties deriving from mesoscale…