{"id":604737,"date":"2026-08-26T02:40:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T02:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/604737\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T02:40:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T02:40:11","slug":"reject-fluid-simulations-return-to-rheoscopic-fluid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/604737\/","title":{"rendered":"Reject Fluid Simulations, Return To Rheoscopic Fluid"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fluid simulations are one of the \u201ckiller apps\u201d of high-performance computing, but if you can\u2019t afford the performance, they can take a depressingly long time to run. Depending on your use case, as long as you keep the Reynold\u2019s number in mind\u2013 or are just looking for a qualitative look at pretty flows\u2013you might be able to get away with purely-practical simulations using rheoscopic fluid, as [Visual Thinker] demonstrates in a recent video<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The fluid, as you can guess from the name, lets you scope out rheos\u2014 that\u2019s flow, for those of you didn\u2019t take Greek. Making it is as simple as you could ask for: get some mica flakes, which are readily available to add \u2018sparkle\u2019 to cosmetics, and mix with water and a drop of soap. The soap isn\u2019t always necessary, but depending on your mica it helps keep it in suspension and avoid clumping\u2013 [Visual Thinker] found it helped him a good deal. Being flat plates of reflective material, the mica flakes catch the light and sparkle beautifully\u2013 and since they align with the fluid shear, they show you exactly what\u2019s going on in your \u2018simulation\u2019.<\/p>\n

[Visual Thinker] isn\u2019t starting with serious simulations; the first thing he tries is essentially a toy that lets him see fluid flow around a Benchy by sticking magnets in it and using it to move a cross-section of its hull though a thin layer of fluid sandwitched betwixt pieces of laser-cut acrylic. We don\u2019t call it a toy to disparage it, though\u2013 we totally want one. [Visual] mentions the idea of a coffee table combining the concept with the kind of underslung mechanism we see in sand drawing tables<\/a>, which sounds dangerously hypnotic. If any of you build one, please try and tear your eyes away long enough to let us know.<\/a><\/p>\n

He has another beautiful piece that make the video worth watching: a wind-tunnel, again made of laser-cut acrylic and printed parts. With careful consideration of the scale and flow speeds, that one might actually prove useful\u2013 and even if it doesn\u2019t, it\u2019s pretty enough that it doesn\u2019t really matter. Beauty has its own utility sometimes.<\/p>\n

Most wind tunnels we see a<\/a>round here use actual wind, but rheoscopic fluid was invented for this sort of thing, even if it does make for pretty baubles.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fluid simulations are one of the \u201ckiller apps\u201d of high-performance computing, but if you can\u2019t afford the performance,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604738,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[61,60,248,82],"class_list":["post-604737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-physics","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-physics","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}