A group of scientists has discovered new laws governing the flow of fluids by conducting experiments on an ancient technology: the drinking straw. This newfound understanding has the potential to enhance fluid management in medical and engineering contexts.
“We found that sipping through a straw defies all the previously known laws for the resistance or friction of flow through a pipe or tube,” explains Leif Ristroph, an associate professor at New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and an author of the study, which appears in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics. “This motivated us to search for a new law that could work for any type of fluid moving at any rate through a pipe of any size.”
The movement of liquids and gases through conduits such as pipes, tubes, and ducts is a common phenomenon in both natural and industrial contexts, including in scenarios like the circulation of blood or the transportation of oil through pipelines.
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