At APS 2016 in Portland, Oregon we were happy to submit several talks, posters, and videos. The titles and short abstracts for each one are listed below. We had an amazing time at APS and are very proud of the incredible work our students accomplished last semester. Bird beaks bear the brunt of bashing impact [...]
This year at APS DFD 2016, our video entitled "The Shear Joy of Watching Paint Dry" was awarded the Milton van Dyke award! We are honored to have received this award and are proud of all the hard work our students put into making the video. Watch the video below, enjoy!
Abstract: Buoyant spheres released below the free surface can rise well above the surface in a phenomenon known as pop-up. Contrary to intuition, increasing the release depth sometimes results in a lower pop-up height. We present the pop-up height of rising buoyant spheres over a range of release depths (1–12.5 diameters) and Reynolds numbers (4×104 [...]
We are excited to report the publication of our article "Water exit dynamics of buoyant spheres" in the Physical Review Fluids. The full article can be found here and the abstract is below. Buoyant spheres released below the free surface can rise well above the surface in a phenomenon known as pop-up. Contrary to intuition, [...]
This October Dr. Truscott and PhD student Randy Hurd presented at the ASEE Rocky Mountain Conference in Cedar City, Utah. Their presentation on strengthening students' understanding of fundamental engineering principles won the award for best presentation! The abstract from the paper associated with the presentation can be found here and the abstract is below. We [...]
Abstract: Obtaining pressure field data from particle image velocimetry (PIV) is an attractive technique in fluid dynamics due to its noninvasive nature. The application of this technique generally involves integrating the pressure gradient or solving the pressure Poisson equation using a velocity field measured with PIV. However, very little research has been done [...]
Abstract: Desert plants possess highly evolved water conservation and transport systems, from the root structures that maximize absorption of scarce ground water1,2,3,4,5, to the minimization of leaf surface area6 to enhance water retention. Recent attention has focused on leaf structures that are adapted to collect water and promote nucleation from humid air7,8,9. Syntrichia [...]
Abstract: We present new observations from an experimental investigation of the classical problem of the crown splash and sealing phenomena observed during the impact of spheres onto quiescent liquid pools. In the experiments, a 6 m tall vacuum chamber was used to provide the required ambient conditions from atmospheric pressure down to 1/16th of [...]
Abstract: We present observations from an experimental study of the ablation of a free liquid surface promoted by a focused laser pulse, causing a rapid discharge of liquid in the form of a very thin conical-shaped sheet. In order to capture the dynamics, we employ a state-of-the-art ultra-high-speed video camera capable of capturing [...]
Abstract: Incited by public fascination and engineering application, water-skipping of rigid stones and spheres has received considerable study. While these objects can be coaxed to ricochet, elastic spheres demonstrate superior water-skipping ability, but little is known about the effect of large material compliance on water impact physics. Here we show that upon water [...]