Multistable autonomous motion of fruit on a smooth hotplate

Origin of scale coupling may be clarified by the understanding of multistability, or shifts between stable points via unstable equilibrium points due to a stimulus. When placed on a glasstop hotplate, cobs of corn underwent multistable autonomous oscillation, with unsteady viscous lubrication below and transitional plumes above, where the buoyancy to inertia force ratio is close to ≥ 1.0. Subsequently, viscous wall-frictional multistability occurred in six more types of smooth fruit with nominal symmetry. Autonomous motion observed are: cobs roll, pitch and yaw; but green chillies, blueberries, tropical berries, red grapes, oblong grapes and grape tomatoes roll and yaw. The cross products of the orthogonal angular momentum produce the observed motion. The prevalence of roll and yaw motion are the most common. Lubricant film thickness h$$\propto$$ ∝ U/(TF), for cob mass F, tangential velocity U and temperature T. In heavier cobs, the film thins, breaking frequently, changing stability. Lighter cobs have high h, favoring positive feedback and more spinning: more T rises, more viscosity of water drops, increasing U and h more, until cooling onsets. Infrequent popping of the tender corn kernel has the same mean sound pressure level as in hard popcorn. The plume vortex jets lock-in to the autonomous rolling cob oscillation. Away from any solid surface, the hot-cold side boundary produces plumes slanted at ± 45°. Surface fencing (13–26 μm high) appears to control motion drift.

Coalescence and Secondary Ice Development in Cumulus Congestus Clouds

Understanding ice development in Cumulus Congestus (CuCg) clouds, which are ubiquitous globally, is critical for improving our knowledge of cloud physics, cloud resolution and climate prediction models. Results presented here are representative of data collected in 1,008 penetrations of moderate to strong updrafts in CuCg clouds by five research aircraft in six geographic locations. The results show that CuCg with warm (> ∼20°C) cloud base temperatures, such as in tropical marine environments, experience a strong collision-coalescence process. Development of coalescence is also correlated with drop effective radius > ∼12 to 14 µm in diameter. Increasing the cloud-base drop concentration with diameters from 15 to 35 µm and decreasing the drop concentration < 15 µm appears to enhance coalescence. While the boundary-layer aerosol population is not a determinate factor in development of coalescence in tropical marine environments, its impact on coalescence is not yet fully determined. Some supercooled large drops generated via coalescence fracture when freezing, producing a secondary ice process (SIP) with production of copious small ice particles that naturally seed the cloud. The SIP produces an avalanche effect, freezing the majority of supercooled liquid water before fresh updrafts reach the −16°C level. Conversely, CuCg with cloud base temperatures ≤ ∼8°C develop significant concentrations of ice particles at colder temperatures, so that small supercooled water drops are lofted to higher elevations before freezing. Recirculation of ice in downdrafts at the edges of updrafts appears to be the primary mechanism for development of precipitation in CuCg with colder cloud base temperatures.

Submicron drops from flapping bursting bubbles

Tiny water drops produced from bubble bursting play a critical role in forming clouds, scattering sunlight, and transporting pathogens from water to the air. Bubbles burst by nucleating a hole at their cap foot and may produce jets or film drops. The latter originate from the fragmentation of liquid ligaments formed by the centripetal destabilization of the opening hole rim. They constitute a major fraction of the aerosols produced from bubbles with cap radius of curvature (R) > ∼0.4 × capillary length (a). However, our present understanding of the corresponding mechanisms does not explain the production of most submicron film drops, which represent the main number fraction of sea spray aerosols. In this study, we report observations showing that bursting bubbles with R < ∼0.4a are actually mainly responsible for submicron film drop production, through a mechanism involving the flapping shear instability of the cap with the outer environment. With this proposed pathway, the complex relations between bubble size and number of drops produced per bubble can be better explained, providing a fundamental framework for understanding the production flux of aerosols and the transfer of substances mediated by bubble bursting through the air–water interface and the sensitivity of the process to the nature of the environment.

Enhanced Symbiotic Organisms Search and Hydrological Cycle Algorithms for Real Power Loss Diminution and Voltage Stability Enhancement

In this chapter, enhanced symbiotic organisms search (ESOS) algorithm and hydrological cycle (HC) algorithm are projected to solve factual power loss lessening problem. Symbiotic search algorithm is based on the actions between two different organisms in the ecosystem: mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism. Exploration procedure has been initiated arbitrarily, and each organism indicates a solution with fitness value. Quasi-oppositional-based learning and chaotic local search have been applied to augment the performance of the algorithm. In this work, hydrological cycle (HC) algorithm has been utilized to solve the optimal reactive power problem. It imitates the circulation of water form land to sky and vice versa. Only definite number of water droplets is chosen for evaporation, and it is done through roulette-wheel selection method. In the condensation stage, water drops move closer, combine, and also collusion occurs as the temperature decreases.

Secondary ice production during the break-up of freezing water drops on impact with ice particles

We provide the first dedicated laboratory study of collisions of supercooled water drops with ice particles as a secondary ice production mechanism. We experimentally investigated collisions of supercooled water drops (∼ 5 mm in diameter) with ice particles of a similar size (∼ 6 mm in diameter) placed on a glass slide at temperatures >-12 ∘C. Our results showed that secondary drops were generated during both the spreading and retraction phase of the supercooled water drop impact. The secondary drops generated during the spreading phase were emitted too fast to quantify. However, quantification of the secondary drops generated during the retraction phase with diameters >0.1 mm showed that 5–10 secondary drops formed per collision, with approximately 30 % of the secondary drops freezing over a temperature range between −4 and −12 ∘C. Our results suggest that this secondary ice production mechanism may be significant for ice formation in atmospheric clouds containing large supercooled drops and ice particles.

A Variable Rate Drip Irrigation Prototype for Precision Irrigation

A new Variable Rate Drip Irrigation (VRDI) emitter that monitors individual water drops was designed, built, and tested. This new emitter controllers water application directly by monitoring the volume applied in contrast to uniform drip irrigation systems that control water application indirectly by pressure compensation and operational times. Prior approaches assumed irrigation volumes based on flow rates and time and typically did not verify the applied amount of water applied at each water outlet. The new VRDI emitter self-monitors the total volume of water applied and halts the flow once the desired total water application has been achieved. This study performed a test for a new VRDI emitter design with two inner diameters of 0.11 cm and 0.12 cm and two outer diameters 0.3 cm and 0.35 cm compared to a commercial drip emitter. Laboratory tests verify that the integrated volume measurements of the VRDI system are independent of pressure. Conversely, the flow rates of the commercial pressure-compensated drip lines were not independent of pressure. These results demonstrate that this form of VRDI is technically feasible and is shown to be energy efficient, requiring lower system operating pressures than pressure-compensated lines. The VRDI system can reduce water consumption and related water costs.

The ejection of large non-oscillating droplets from a hydrophobic wedge in microgravity

When confined within containers or conduits, drops and bubbles migrate to regions of minimum energy by the combined effects of surface tension, surface wetting, system geometry, and initial conditions. Such capillary phenomena are exploited for passive phase separation operations in micro-fluidic devices on earth and macro-fluidic devices aboard spacecraft. Our study focuses on the migration and ejection of large inertial-capillary drops confined between tilted planar hydrophobic substrates (a.k.a., wedges). In our experiments, the brief nearly weightless environment of a 2.1 s drop tower allows for the study of such capillary dominated behavior for up to 10 mL water drops with migration velocities up to 12 cm/s. We control ejection velocities as a function of drop volume, substrate tilt angle, initial confinement, and fluid properties. We then demonstrate how such geometries may be employed as passive no-moving-parts droplet generators for very large drop dynamics investigations. The method is ideal for hand-held non-oscillatory ‘droplet’ generation in low-gravity environments.