Researchers use numerical simulations to predict different patterns that may form as viscous threads fall onto a moving belt.
Drizzling honey on toast can produce mesmerizing, meandering patterns, as the syrupy fluid ripples and coils in a sticky, golden thread. Dribbling paint on canvas can produce similarly serpentine loops and waves. The patterns created by such viscous fluids can be reproduced experimentally in a setup known as a "fluid mechanical sewing machine," in which an overhead nozzle deposits a thick fluid onto a moving conveyor belt. Researchers have carried out such experiments in an effort to identify the physical factors that influence the patterns that form. Now a group of mathematicians at MIT, Cambridge University, and elsewhere have developed a simple model to predict patterns formed by viscous fluids as they fall onto a moving surface. The researchers looked at four patterns - sinusoidal waves; repeating and alternating loops; and straight lines - and observed that the pattern formed depends on the ratio between the fluid's speed on impact and the speed of the conveyor belt. The team found that this ratio influences a fluid's shape, or curvature, just before hitting the surface, which in turn determines the pattern that forms.
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