Art of Science 2013 Online Gallery  «Prev | Thumbnails | Next »


Merger and acquisition
Daniel Quinn (graduate student), Brian Rosenberg (graduate student), Amanda DeGiorgi (graduate student), and Alexander Smits (faculty)
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
The intermingling of two fluids can be remarkably intricate. Here we highlight the complexity of such flows by imaging a drop of fluorescent dye plunging into quiescent water. At the droplet's forefront is a stunning horseshoe-like structure that commonly appears when one fluid slides past another. While the droplet's core is bulbous and coherent, turbulence stretches its wake into gossamer strands. Eventually the tendrils are so thin that dye and water coalesce via molecular diffusion.