2009 Image Gallery

The Division of Fluid Dynamics exists for the advancement and diffusion of knowledge of the physics of fluids with special emphasis on the dynamical theories of the liquid, plastic and gaseous states of matter under all conditions of temperature and pressure.

Every year, the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics hosts a physical Gallery of Fluid Motion at its annual meeting -- a room where stunning graphics and videos from computational or experimental studies showing flow phenomena are displayed. The most outstanding entries are selected by a panel of referees for artistic content and honored for their originality and ability to convey information. Past winners are published in the journal Physics of Fluids.

The Gallery of Fluid Motion at the 62nd APS Division of Fluid Dynamics Annual Meeting, held from November 22-24, 2009 at the Minneapolis Convention Center, highlighted a subset of submitted images and videos prior to the judging process.
Gray arrow 2009 Video Gallery

Usage Permission

Reporters seeking permission to use these images or desiring author contact information should email Jason Bardi.

Viscous Splash

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At atmospheric pressure, the drop first spreads smoothly, then after about a millisecond, a thin sheet of fluid is ejected. The drop continues to expand until the thin sheet begins to rip apart, creating a splash.


Stretching and Deformation of a Viscous Filament in a Turbulent Flow

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Studying the mechanisms that controls the formation of emulsions of very viscous liquids to better understand how to handle highly viscous oil residues.


A Short-Wave Instability Caused by the Approach of a Vortex Pair to a Ground Plane

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The counter-rotating pair of vortices formed from aircraft wingtips in flight presents a potential hazard to other aircraft in the form of a sustained rolling moment.


Splash: Drop Impact on Small Targets

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The dynamics of drops impacting small targets is investigated in experiments using high-speed imaging up to 30,000 frames per second.


Visualization of the Flow Around Shells Used by Hermit Crabs

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The flow around gastropod shells used by hermit crabs (Calcinus californiensis) was visualized experimentally.


Lagrangian Feature Extraction of the Cylinder Wake

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Extracting Lagrangian features in the 2-D von-Kármán vortex street behind a circular cylinder. The distance of neighboring fluid particles is monitored with forward and backward time evolution over two shedding periods.


Bubble Cluster Explosion

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Twenty-five laser-induced cavitation bubbles are created simultaneously inside a thin liquid gap using a single laser pulse.


Antibubbles in a Cyclone Eyewall

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An antibubble is the inverse of a bubble. Who would expect that something spectacular may result when soapy water is poured on a pool of the same soapy water?


The Geometry of Ocean Mixing

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Mixing processes in oceans are key contributors to very important features of the current climate.


Revisiting Karman Vortex Street

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The unsteadiness that flow can exhibit is observed above a certain critical flow speed in the form of periodic vortex shedding pattern known as Karman Vortex Street.


Vortex Furrows in the Transitioning Boundary Layer

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Mushroom shaped vortices composed of vortex filaments erupt outward from the region adjacent to a solid boundary as the flow (toward the viewer) transitions from a smooth, laminar state towards one that is chaotic and turbulent.


3-D Flow Visualization of a Turbulent Jet

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The transition to turbulence in a jet is captured in three-dimensional detail using a recently developed high-speed 3-D flow visualization technique.


Water in Acoustic Motion

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The transfer of ultrasound energy/momentum into the fluid causes the water to stream and/or move in the direction of the ultrasound field.


Vortex Shedding in the Wake of a Step Cylinder

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Water flows over step cylinder composed of two coaxially joined cylinders of different diameters. This results in complex vortex connections between large cylinder and small cylinder vortices that can be seen in the images.


Defining Microstructured Fluids and Soft Materials, Bottom Up

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Massively scaled-out microfluidic device for the in-flow formation and perfusion of a 3-D vascularized biomaterial.


Spikes and Bubbles in Turbulent Mixing: High Atwood Number Rayleigh-Taylor Instability

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Rayleigh-Taylor instability occurs at the interface between a heavy fluid overlying a light fluid, under a constant acceleration, and is of fundamental importance in a multitude of applications ranging from astrophysics and to ocean and atmosphere dynamics.


Miscible Oil Droplets in Alcohol

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A droplet of oil is released into a container of isopropyl alcohol. The refraction difference between the oil and alcohol causes the edges of the oil droplet to appear bright.


Water Drops in Hot Oil

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Recording and summarizing what happens when drops of water at room temperature were released in hot oil.


Interfacial Jets: An Oscillating Bubble Collapses Near a Fluid-Fluid Interface

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An explosively expanding bubble with a maximum bubble radius of 0.68 mm is generated by vaporizing the water just above a fluid-fluid interface with a short laser pulse.


Vortical Structure of Plane Jet Issuing from a Sinusoidal Wavy Nozzle

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These images show the flow structure of the plane jet issuing from a sinusoidal wavy nozzle in three horizontal planes