Credit: R. Murphy/NIST
In this artist’s conception, data from the small angle neutron scattering (SANS) experiment at the NIST Center for Neutron Research (NCNR) form a colorful backdrop to transparent spheres representing part of a worm-like micelle, a tiny structure often found in soaps. Higher-intensity neutron scattering (red regions) indicates that the micelles are aligning strongly with the direction of flow through the NCNR’s capillary rheoSANS device, lining up like toothpicks in a tube. The micelles are one of many substances whose properties under extreme flow conditions could become better understood with the new research tool.
What do the loopy straws that children like to sip drinks through have in common with cutting-edge science? Ask Ryan Murphy and his colleagues at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where the team has thought up a creative way to explore the properties of fluids under extreme conditions.
The team invented a device that can push fluids through a narrow tube at the velocity of a car hurtling down a rural interstate — about 110 km per hour. This might not sound overly fast to a road tripper, but the tube’s inner diameter is typically 100 micrometers — about the thickness of a human hair. Scaled up, that would be like a train hurtling through a subway tunnel about 100 times faster than a rocket blasting its way into orbit.
To add to the fun, the meter-long tube is coiled up like a spring, so the fluid careens around loop after three-centimeter-wide loop, as though that rocketing subway were a blindingly fast roller coaster that turns somersaults from start to finish.
Installed at the NIST Center for Neutron Research (NCNR), the team’s device is about to do some serious science, with a potent ..
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