MIT researchers explain mystery of gravi...(solution. Cueto-Felgueroso a post-d...)
solution."
Cueto-Felgueroso, a post-doctoral associate who has previously worked primarily on airflow fluid mechanics problems, had a Eureka! moment when he realized that gravity fingers in soil (or clay or sand) look very similar to water flowing down a window pane, a fairly well-understood phenomenon. He and Juanes then pulled the mathematical explanation (think of it as a phrase of words or music) from the equation describing water on a window, and included that mathematical phrase in the equation describing liquid moving downward through soil.
After rigorous comparison of data produced by the new mathematical model with observed phenomena, the two realized they'd found the solution, a solution described by one scientist reviewing the paper in Physical Review Letters as "simple and elegant" and a "major breakthrough" in the field.
The Cueto-Felgueroso and Juanes solution also describes one aspect of the water-flowing-down-a-windowpane phenomenon that previously was not understood by scientists, who actually refer to this as "the flow of thin films": why water builds up at the tips of the fingers. Again, the answer has to with the surface tension. Before the water can flow down the film, it must build up enough energy to overcome the tension holding it in place.
So what was missing from earlier models of water moving downward through soil that made it appear to move as a steady, horizontal front, rather than in finger-like pathseven when the soil was homogenous in particle size and shape?
The missing mathematical phrase describes the surface tension of the entire finger of water, which may be several centimeters in width, as opposed to the tension existing at the micron-scale of pores between soil particles.
And that phrase will sound like music to the ears of physicists and engineers.
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| Contact: Denise Brehm brehm@mit.edu 617-253-8069 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Source:Eurekalert |
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