TY - JOUR
T1 - Surfactants on troubled waters
AU - Lohse, Detlef
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press.
PY - 2023/12/20
Y1 - 2023/12/20
N2 - 'Storm oil' - nearly water-insoluble oil poured into the ocean and acting as a surfactant - has been used since ancient times to smooth the waves on the ocean. It was first scientifically described by Benjamin Franklin (Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond., vol. 64, 1774, pp. 445-460). In a recent paper, by combining highly controlled experiments in a wave tank and direct numerical simulations, Erinin et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 972, 2023, R5) have now beautifully revealed the strong effect of soluble surfactants on the dynamics of plunging breakers. Remarkably, it is not the change in surface tension which mainly matters, but the surface tension gradient which emerges through compression and dilation of the plunging breaker surface.
AB - 'Storm oil' - nearly water-insoluble oil poured into the ocean and acting as a surfactant - has been used since ancient times to smooth the waves on the ocean. It was first scientifically described by Benjamin Franklin (Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond., vol. 64, 1774, pp. 445-460). In a recent paper, by combining highly controlled experiments in a wave tank and direct numerical simulations, Erinin et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 972, 2023, R5) have now beautifully revealed the strong effect of soluble surfactants on the dynamics of plunging breakers. Remarkably, it is not the change in surface tension which mainly matters, but the surface tension gradient which emerges through compression and dilation of the plunging breaker surface.
KW - biological fluid dynamics
KW - UT-Hybrid-D
U2 - 10.1017/jfm.2023.891
DO - 10.1017/jfm.2023.891
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85180551380
SN - 0022-1120
VL - 976
JO - Journal of fluid mechanics
JF - Journal of fluid mechanics
M1 - F1
ER -