Ed Yeates reporting
Movies portray it all the time: Mystical figures skip across a lake or ocean never sinking, their magical feet just skimming the top of the water. Today, engineering students at Utah State University did just that, or did they?
A pool five feet wide and 10 feet long filled with water. Like some mystical ninja, can a person walk across the water? Just do it quickly without thinking?
It's not magic, nor are these students. The pool is actually a mixture of water and cornstarch, and it's on display as part of Utah State University's Engineering Week.
Instead of dab or two, the students used 1,500 pounds of cornstarch to make what is called a non-Newtonian fluid. "It doesn't behave like any other liquid out there. When you apply force or a stress or a pressure on it, it actually solidifies rather than like most liquids, which just get out of the way," explained Daniel Nelson, biological engineering student at USU.
In fact, if you don't move quickly, you'll sink to the bottom, and fast.
The concept here is not new. Mythbusters have done this, so have others. This is a lot of fun, but for student engineers like Nelson, this is also real science.
In fact, more sophisticated versions of non-Newtonian fluids are being developed on a nano-scale to make new generation bulletproof vests. "They're doing body armor to stop bullets as they hit. It's fluid-like so soldiers can move, but when a bullet would actually strike the vest, it turns solid and thus becomes a bulletproof vest," Nelson explained.
For prosthetic limbs, non-Newtonian fluids are flexible when the user moves but solid when you put a load on the joint.
There now, we've justified why we're all playing in this little pool. Even Dr. H. Scott Hinton, Dean of the College of Engineering, skipped across the water.
News |
Weather
Traffic |
TV
Sports
Opinion |
Radio |
Classifieds
Announcements
Events
Movies |
Advertise with KSL
Other Resources
Wireless
Legal
Sister Sites
|