1,662 research outputs found
Nematic Films and Radially Anisotropic Delaunay Surfaces
We develop a theory of axisymmetric surfaces minimizing a combination of
surface tension and nematic elastic energies which may be suitable for
describing simple film and bubble shapes. As a function of the elastic constant
and the applied tension on the bubbles, we find the analogues of the unduloid,
sphere, and nodoid in addition to other new surfaces.Comment: 15 pages, 18 figure
Vibrating soap films: An analog for quantum chaos on billiards
We present an experimental setup based on the normal modes of vibrating soap
films which shows quantum features of integrable and chaotic billiards. In
particular, we obtain the so-called scars -narrow linear regions with high
probability along classical periodic orbits- for the classically chaotic
billiards. We show that these scars are also visible at low frequencies.
Finally, we suggest some applications of our experimental setup in other
related two-dimensional wave phenomena.Comment: 5 pages, 7 figures. Better Postscript figures available on reques
Simulating incompressible thin-film fluid with a Moving Eulerian-Lagrangian Particle method
In this thesis, we introduce a Moving Eulerian-Lagrangian Particle (MELP) method, a mesh-free method to simulate incompressible thin-film fluid systems: soap bubbles, bubble clusters, and foams. The realistic simulation of such systems depends upon the successful treatment of three aspects: (1) the soap film\u27s deformation due to the tendency to minimize the surface energy, giving rise to the bouncy characteristics of soap bubbles, (2) the tangential fluid flow on the thin film, causing the thickness to vary spatially, which in conjunction with thin-film interference creates evolving and highly sophisticated iridescent color patterns, (3) the topological changes due to collision, separation, and fragmentation, which may create partition surfaces and non-manifold junctions that spontaneously settle into honeycomb structures due to force balance. The interleaving complexities from all three fronts render the task of accurately and affordably simulating thin-film fluid an open problem for the Computational Physics and Computer Graphics community. The proposed MELP method tackles these multifaceted challenges by employing a novel, bi-layer particle structure: a sparse set of Eulerian particles for dynamic interface tracking and PDE solving, and a fine set of Lagrangian particles for material and momentum transport. Such a design provides crucially advantageous numerical traits compared to existing frameworks. Compared to mesh-based methods, MELP\u27s particle-based nature makes it topologically agnostic, which allows it to conveniently simulate topological changes such as bubble-cluster formation and thin-film rupture. Furthermore, these Lagrangian structures carry out fluid advection naturally, conserve mass by design, and track sub-grid flow details. Compared to existing particle methods, our bi-layer design improves drastically on the computational performance in terms of both stability and efficiency. The advantage of this design will manifest in a wide range of experiments, including dynamic foam formation, Rayleigh-Taylor instability, Newton Black Films, and bubble bursting, showing an increased level of flow detail, increased number of regions in bubble clusters, and increased flexibility to recreate multi-junction formation on-the-fly. Furthermore, we validate its physical correctness against a variety of analytical baselines, by successfully recovering the equilibrium dihedral and tetrahedral angles, the exponential thickness profile of drainage under gravity, the curvature of partition surfaces, and the minimum surface area of double-bubbles
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Surface-Only Simulation of Fluids
Surface-only simulation methods for fluid dynamics are those that perform computation only on a surface representation, without relying on any volumetric discretization. Such methods have superior asymptotic complexity in time and memory than the traditional volumetric discretization approaches, and thus are more tractable for simulation of complex fluid phenomena. Although for most computer graphics applications and many engineering applications, the interior flow inside the fluid phases is typically not of interest, the vast majority of existing numerical techniques still rely on discretization of the volumetric domain. My research first tackles the mesh-based surface tracking problem in the multimaterial setting, and then proposes surface-only simulation solutions for two scenarios: the soap-films and bubbles, and the general 3D liquids. Throughout these simulation approaches, all computation takes place on the surface, and volumetric discretization is entirely eliminated
Flow visualization and flow field measurements of a 1/12 scale tilt rotor aircraft in hover
The results are given of flow visualization studies and inflow velocity field measurements performed on a 1/12 scale model of the XV-15 tilt rotor aircraft in the hover mode. The complex recirculating flow due to the rotor-wake-body interactions characteristic of tilt rotors was studied visually using neutrally buoyant soap bubbles and quantitatively using hot wire anemometry. Still and video photography were used to record the flow patterns. Analysis of the photos and video provided information on the physical dimensions of the recirculating fountain flow and on details of the flow including the relative unsteadiness and turbulence characteristics of the flow. Recirculating flows were also observed along the length of the fuselage. Hot wire anemometry results indicate that the wing under the rotor acts to obstruct the inflow causing a deficit in the inflow velocities over the inboard region of the model. Hot wire anemometry also shows that the turbulence intensities in the inflow are much higher in the recirculating fountain reingestion zone
Bubble formation during the collision of a sessile drop with a meniscus
The impact of a sessile droplet with a moving meniscus, as encountered in
processes such as dip-coating, generically leads to the entrapment of small air
bubbles. Here we experimentally study this process of bubble formation by
looking through the liquid using high-speed imaging. Our central finding is
that the size of the entrapped bubble crucially depends on the location where
coalescence between the drop and the moving meniscus is initiated: (i) at a
finite height above the substrate, or (ii) exactly at the contact line. In the
first case, we typically find bubble sizes of the order of a few microns,
independent of the size and speed of the impacting drop. By contrast, the
bubbles that are formed when coalescence starts at the contact line become
increasingly large, as the size or the velocity of the impacting drop is
increased. We show how these observations can be explained from a balance
between the lubrication pressure in the air layer and the capillary pressure of
the drop
Abyss Aerosols
Bubble bursting on water surfaces is believed to be a main mechanism to
produce submicron drops, including sea spray aerosols, which play a critical
role in forming cloud and transferring various biological and chemical
substances from water to the air. Over the past century, drops production
mechanisms from bubble bursting have been extensively studied. They usually
involve the centrifugal fragmentation of liquid ligaments from the bubble cap
during film rupture, the flapping of the cap film, and the disintegration of
Worthington jets after cavity collapse. Here, we show that a dominant fraction
of previously identified as 'bubble bursting' submicron drops are in fact
generated via a new mechanism underwater, inside the bubbles themselves before
they have reached the surface. These drops are then carried within the rising
bubbles towards the water surface and are released in air at bubble bursting.
Evidence suggests that these drops originate from the flapping instability of
the film squeezed between underwater colliding bubbles. This finding
fundamentally reshapes our understanding of sea spray aerosol production and
establishes a new role for underwater bubble collisions regarding the nature of
transfers through water-air interfaces.Comment: 50 pages, 4 figures, and 10 extended data figure
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