Walks of bubbles on a hot wire in a liquid bath

When a horizontal resistive wire is heated up to the boiling point in a subcooled liquid bath, some vapor bubbles nucleate on its surface. Traditional nucleate boiling theory predicts that bubbles generated from active nucleate sites, grow up and depart from the heating surface due to buoyancy and inertia. However, we observed here a different behavior: the bubbles slide along the heated wire. In this situation, unexpected regimes are observed; from the simple sliding motion to bubble clustering. We noticed that bubbles could rapidly change their moving direction and may also interact. Finally, we propose an interpretation for both the attraction between the bubbles and the wire and for the motion of the bubbles on the wire in term of Marangoni effects

Granular size segregation in underwater sand ripples

We report an experimental study of a binary sand bed under an oscillating water flow. The formation and evolution of ripples is observed. The appearance of a granular segregation is shown to strongly depend on the sand bed preparation. The initial wavelength of the mixture is measured. In the final steady state, a segregation in volume is observed instead of a segregation at the surface as reported before. The correlation between this phenomenon and the fluid flow is emphasised. Finally, different ``exotic'' patterns and their geophysical implications are presented.Comment: 8 page

Resonant and antiresonant bouncing droplets

When placed onto a vibrating liquid bath, a droplet may adopt a permanent bouncing behavior, depending on both the forcing frequency and the forcing amplitude. The relationship between the droplet deformations and the bouncing mechanism is studied experimentally and theoretically through an asymmetric and dissipative bouncing spring model. Antiresonance effects are evidenced. Experiments and theoretical predictions show that both resonance at specific frequencies and antiresonance at Rayleigh frequencies play crucial roles in the bouncing mechanism. In particular, we show that they can be exploited for droplet size selection.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures and 1 vide

A fountain of droplets

A vessel is plunged upside down into a pool of 50 cSt silicone oil. An air bell is then created. This bell is vertically shaken at 60 Hz that leads to the oscillation of the air/oil interface. The edges of the immersed vessel generate surface waves that propagate towards the center of the bell. When the amplitude of the oscillation increases, wave amplitude increases. We study the influence of the angle between successive sides on the wave patterns. Two kinds of vessel have been studied: a triangular and a square prism. The shape of the air/oil meniscus depends on the angle between the sides of the considered prism. As the amplitude of the oscillation is increased, the triple line, which is the contact line between the solid and the air/oil interface, moves up and down. Above a given acceleration that depends on the immersion depth and on the shape vessel, wave goes under the corner edge of the bell. During the oscillation, the wave generates at the edges presents a singularity that leads eventually to a jet and a drop ejection. A drop is ejected at each oscillation. More complicated ejection can be produced with further increase of the amplitude. This is a sample arXiv article illustrating the use of fluid dynamics videos.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures, 2 movies (high-res and low-res