Droplet Dynamics Caught on Camera

High-speed imaging to revolutionise 3D printing, a researcher says.

21:35 27 February 2020

A researcher from the University of Leeds has captured the exact moment when two droplets of liquid come together using cameras shooting up to 25,000 frames per second. Thomas Sykes, a PhD researcher, said that the use of high-speed imaging opens up research into new applications for 3D printing. 

 

He said: “The chemistry behind emerging 3D-printing technologies involves having chemicals deposited onto a surface. We often need those chemicals to be positioned in a highly specific way, for example, we may want the droplets to lie side by side or for one droplet to rest on another.

 

“On other occasions we want them to mix completely, to produce the desired reaction to 3D print more complex structures.”

 

Dr Alfonso Castrejón-Pita, an Associate Professor and co-author of the study, based at the University of Oxford, added: “In the past, there have been instances when two droplets impact and you were left wondering whether they have mixed or has one droplet just passed over the other. Having two cameras record the droplet interaction from different viewpoints answers that question.”