Science Digest Chalk Talk: "How hard do you have to push water through a pipe?"

Rory Cerbus (Staff Scientist in Chakraborty Unit)

Abstract

Surprisingly, we still don’t fully know the answer to this seemingly mundane question. In this talk I will begin with what we do know. If the flow in any pipe with any liquid has no fluctuations in the velocity, pressure, or any other measurable quantity, then we know the answer. If the flow is instead completely full of fluctuations, then we also know the answer. The problem is when fluctuations don’t completely fill up the pipe. This kind of flow is often called “transitional”, because it is transitioning from no fluctuations at all to only fluctuations. I’ll present what our group has learned about pushing transitional flow and what we are still trying to figure out.