Chemical flowers: Buoyancy-driven instabilities under modulated gravity during a parabolic flight

This paper is associated with a video winner of the 2021 American Physical Society's Division of Fluid Dynamics (DFD) Milton van Dyke Award for work presented at the DFD Gallery of Fluid Motion. The original video is available online at the Gallery of Fluid Motion, https://doi.org/10.1103/APS.DFD.2021.GFM.V0036.

Figure 1

Sketch of a miscible displacement of a fluid of density ${\rho }_1$ by a fluid with higher density ${\rho }_2$: (a) perpendicular view and (b) transversal view.

Figure 2

Experimental setup: (a) schematic representation and (b) setup used for the parabolic flights.

Figure 3

Comparison of two displacement experiments ($Q=8.22\mathrm{mL}/\min$ and $h=0.6\mathrm{mm}$) at $t=25\mathrm{s}$ under different acceleration values, but otherwise identical experimental parameters: (a) $1g$ and (b) micro-$g$.

Figure 4

Evolution of an injection experiment ($Q=3\mathrm{mL}/\min$ and $h=1.0\mathrm{mm}$) under modulating gravity: (a) micro-$g$, (b) $1.8g$, and (c) $1g$.