How stretchy fluids react to wavy surfaces
Wednesday, November 7, 2018 - 09:10
in Physics & Chemistry
Viscoelastic fluids are everywhere, whether racing through your veins or through 1,300 kilometers of pipe in the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. Unlike Newtonian fluids, such as oil or water, viscoelastic fluids stretch like a sticky strand of saliva. Chains of molecules inside the fluids grant them this superpower, and scientists are still working to understand how it affects their behavior. Researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) have brought us one step closer by demonstrating how viscoelastic fluids flow over wavy surfaces, and their results are unexpected.