| Student Manual |  A droplet placed on a liquid surface usually spreads or stays intact, but under certain conditions, it bursts into smaller droplets, scattering across the surface. This effect, known as Marangoni bursting, is driven by surface tension gradients and evaporation. This activity explores this effect through the analysis of sharp videos. The phenomenon of self-similarity will also be appreciated, which means that physical effects show the same underlying behavior despite being of different sizes. |
| Sample Results | Evolution of radius with time and observing self-similarityData acquired by Wajahat Sami in PhysLab (Aug 2025)A complete solution set, acquired by Aleeza Ayaz from Qosain Scientific (January 2025) |
| Experiment Code | 1.37 |
| Version | 2025-v1 |
Further Readings and References
- The Song of Fluids,https://physlab.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/The-Song-of-Fluids.pdf, Aleeza Ayaz and M. Sabieh Anwar, (2025).
- 70th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics,https://gfm.aps.org/meetings/dfd-2017/59a83600b8ac316d388419f1, G. Durey et al., V0020, (2017).
- Physical Review Letters,https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.074504, L. Keiser at al., 118, 074504, (2017).
Pictorial Procedure
The process to set this up is very simple. See this figure. An DSLR which is our hi-res camera points downward onto a petri dish that has the IPA-water mixture. You will need to optimize the camera settings. All of the work then happens on the extracted video.