Repelling drops on a fiber

Jessica L. Wilson, a graduate student in Howard Stone’s Complex Fluids Group, recalls spending a recent Christmas in the lab to isolate from a family member who thought they had COVID. The spirit of the season - holiday lights in particular - informed this experiment that shows how droplets on a fiber in a wind tunnel interact with each other. This video has been sped up (3.5 times faster). The dynamics in the video form part of a study co-authored with postdoctoral researchers Amir A. Pahlavan (now faculty at Yale University) and Martin A. Erinin, visiting professor Camille Duprat (who hails from LadHyX in France), and Profs. Luc Deike and Howard A. Stone. The lab’s research has been motivated by industrial applications of home and personal care products, fiber coating, medical and clinical applications, and more.