Elliptical Obstacle Research Articles

Flow of foam past an elliptical obstacle

To investigate the link between discrete small-scale and continuous large scale mechanical properties of a foam, we observe its two-dimensional flow in a channel, around an elliptical obstacle. We measure the drag, lift, and torque acting on the ellipse versus the angle between its major axis and the flow direction. The drag increases with the spanwise dimension, in marked contrast with a square obstacle. The lift passes through a smooth extremum at an angle close to, but smaller than 45 degrees. The torque peaks at a significantly smaller angle 26 degrees. No existing model can reproduce the observed viscous, elastic, plastic behavior. We propose a microscopic visco-elasto-plastic model which agrees qualitatively with the data.

Observation of diffraction caustics for ultrasound

The formation of caustics due to the diffraction of ultrasound is observed by scanning in the shadow region close behind an elliptical obstacle in water. Good agreement is obtained between experiment and the theoretical geometry of the caustic, which is an astroid centered in that shadow region.