Explore the images and play the animations at your own pace. The captions identify what is shown and what to watch for.
01 · Multiphase flow
One drop meets another
A turquoise drop impacts a tan drop initially resting on a solid surface. The colours identify two immiscible liquid phases, rather than temperature or velocity. Read the snapshots from left to right.
Before impactSpreadingRecoil
These are selected stages from one simulation, not equally spaced times. Select an image to inspect it at full size.
02 · Forced interface motion
A droplet on a vibrating fibre
The purple shape is the liquid droplet; the grey rod is the solid fibre. The fibre is driven to vibrate. Watch how the droplet deforms and eventually detaches.
What forcing is enough to shake a drop free? Vibration amplitude, frequency and wetting behaviour offer possible questions to investigate.
03 · Thermal flow
A hot tube bundle
Heated tubes exchange heat with the surrounding fluid. Watch the rising plumes interact above the two rows of tubes.
Follow the plumes as they bend, merge and carry heat away from the tubes.
04 · Confined flow
A moving lid sets the fluid in motion
A wall-driven flow inside a square cavity. Motion at the lid drives circulation, while smaller structures develop near the walls and within the flow.
Watch how structures are transported and stretched inside the confined domain. The clip is shown with its original colour map.
05 · Complex flow
The wake behind a sphere
A three-dimensional flow visualization shows intricate structures around and downstream of a sphere. Watch how the wake evolves in the animation.
The coloured structures are visualization surfaces, not solid objects.
06 · Shear instability
Kelvin–Helmholtz: from shear to spirals
Two fluid layers move in opposite directions. Small disturbances grow into rolling vortices, which interact, merge and stretch into fine filaments.
Colour shows signed vorticity: blue for clockwise rotation, orange for anticlockwise rotation. A planar VirtualFluids simulation on a 1024 × 512 grid, with Reynolds number 1500 based on the shear thickness. Watch small billows become larger, interacting structures.
07 · Jet into a pool
A jet enters still fluid
Fluid is continuously injected through a narrow opening on the left into an initially quiescent pool. The advancing jet head rolls up, draws in surrounding fluid, and leaves unstable shear layers behind it.
Reynolds number 20,000 based on nozzle width. Blue indicates clockwise rotation; orange indicates anticlockwise rotation. Small inlet disturbances trigger instability. The pool starts at rest, with open ambient-pressure boundaries at its far edges.
08 · Three-dimensional motion
A vortex ring with a restless core
A ring of rotating fluid carries disturbances around its core. Seeded fluctuations make the ring deform and produce smaller vortical structures around it.
Volume rendering of vorticity magnitude: blue marks weaker rotation and gold marks stronger rotation. Reynolds number 12,000 based on circulation. The view is in a frame moving with the ring; the wisps show rotating fluid, rather than smoke concentration.
