arXiv subjects

Tristan Aurégan

Publications and source records attributed to Tristan Aurégan.

9 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Fast and slow surfactants in turbulence-driven bubble breakup

When a large air cavity breaks in a turbulent flow, it goes through very large deformations and cascading events of new interface formation, including elongated filaments and bubbles over a wide range of scales, with their rate of formation controlled by turbulence and capillary processes. We experimentally investigate the effects of surfactants and salt on the fragmentation of a large air cavity, and observe a five fold increase of the number of bubbles being produced in some cases. We characterize the bubble size distribution resulting from successive break-ups in such transient configuration. For bubbles larger than the Hinze scale $d_H$ (defined as the balance between surface tension and turbulence stresses), we observe that bubble size distributions remain unchanged for all solutions tested. For bubbles below $d_H$, however, we observe an increase of the number of bubbles produced and an associated steepening of the bubble size distribution upon the addition of surfactant or salt. This later effect is only visible for surfactants with an adsorption timescale that is fast enough compared to the rate at which new interfaces are being generated by turbulence.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2026

Solubility enhanced surfactant-induced flow in air-liquid-air sheets

Liquid interfaces appear throughout nature and engineering and are typically contaminated by surface active agents (surfactants), which are characterized by a wide range of solubility. We demonstrate that solubility enhances by an order of magnitude surfactant-induced flow in air-liquid-air films, in contrast to previously studied geometries where solubility dampens the flow. The enhancement is described by a single parameter comparing the depletion length to the film thickness. Our experiments are well described by an asymptotic theory of the Navier-Stokes equations with surfactant kinetics.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2026

Propulsive performance of a windsurf-inspired pitching foil

We study experimentally a symmetrical rigid foil performing pitching oscillations around a mean incidence angle ($α_{m}$) with respect to an incoming flow in a hydrodynamic channel at a constant velocity where the Reynolds number according to the chord of the foil is, $Re_{c} = ρU_{\infty} c / μ= 14400$. The problem is inspired from the pumping maneuver used by athletes on the new hydrofoil-based windsurf boards. The goal of the study is to quantify the forces on this configuration by varying the pitching kinematics characterized by the Strouhal number ($St_{A} = fA/U_{\infty}$), from 0 to 0.27, and the mean incidence angle $α_{m}$, from 0 to 30$^{\circ}$, of the foil. The force measurements show a high lift production and the delay of the stall angle according to $St_A$ which can be linked to previous studies about the generation of vortices at the trailing edge. A general trend of decrease is observed for the drag force coefficient in pitching compare to the static case. For the highest Strouhal numbers tested, drag coefficient can become negative (thrust) in a range of $α_{m}$ up to 15$^{\circ}$ in specific case. We present the various impacts of the amplitude of beating and the frequency of pitching on the aerodynamic forces for small mean incidence angle and high mean incidence angle (above the static stall angle). By using a sport-mimetic approach, we transform the measured lift $\&$ drag forces into a propulsive and drifting force. Doing so allows us to investigate race strategies. We investigate the generation of propulsion in upwind conditions.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2025

Size Amplification of Jet Drops due to Insoluble Surfactants

Surface bubbles in the environment or engineering configurations, such as the ocean-atmosphere interface, sparkling wine, or during volcanic eruptions typically live on contaminated surfaces. A particularly common type of contamination is surface active agents (surfactants). We consider the effect of insoluble surfactant on jet drop formation by bubble bursting. Contrary to the observed trend that surfactants decrease the ejected drop radius for bubbles with precursor capillary waves, we find that surfactants increase the ejected drop radius for bubbles without precursor capillary waves - a regime characteristic of small bubbles. Consequently, the results have fundamental implications for understanding aerosol distributions in contaminated conditions. We find that the trend reversal is due to the effect of Marangoni stresses on the focusing of the collapsing cavity. We demonstrate quantitative agreement on the jet velocity and drop size between laboratory experiments and numerical simulations by using the measured surface tension dependence on surfactant concentration as the equation of state for the simulations. *Jun Eshima and Tristan Aurégan contributed equally to this work.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2025

Jet drop production from bubbles with neighbors

Bubbles bursting at the surface of the ocean produce drops that heavily influence ocean-atmosphere interactions. One of the mechanisms through which drops are formed is called jet drop production, where the collapse of the bubble cavity leads to the formation of a fast upwards jet that breaks to form drops. While isolated bubble bursting has been extensively studied, bubbles are often found in rafts (for instance in the ocean surface or a sparkling wine glass) and the understanding of collective effects remains more limited. We investigate experimentally how jet drop formation is modified by the presence of neighboring bubbles during the collapse. With the help of multiple high speed views of the collapsing bubble, we show how a change of cavity shape during collapse leads to the selection of smaller, faster, and more numerous drops. The size of the emitted drops is monotonically reduced with increasing number of neighboring bubbles (up to six for hexagonal packing) with the size reduction reaching a factor 5. The drop size distribution associated with bubbles arranged in rafts of various sizes is therefore much wider than in the case of isolated bubbles, and with a peak shifted to smaller sizes.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2025

Surface bubble lifetime in the presence of a turbulent air flow, and the effect of surface layer renewal

Surface bubbles in the ocean are critical in moderating several fluxes between the atmosphere and the ocean. In this paper, we experimentally investigate the drainage and lifetime of surface bubbles in solutions containing surfactants and salts, subjected to turbulence in the air surrounding them modelling the wind above the ocean. We carefully construct a setup allowing us to repeatably measure the mean lifetime of a series of surface bubbles, while varying the solution and the wind speed or humidity of the air. To that end, we show that renewing the surface layer is critical to avoid a change of the physical properties of the interface. We show that the drainage of the bubbles is well modelled by taking into account the outwards viscous flow and convective evaporation. The mean lifetime of surface bubbles in solutions containing no salt is controlled by evaporation and independent on surfactant concentration. When salt is added, the same scaling is valid only at high surfactant concentrations. At low concentrations, the lifetime is always smaller and independent of wind speed, owing to the presence of impurities triggering a thick bursting event. When the mean lifetime is controlled by evaporation, the probability density of lifetime is very narrow around its mean, while when impurities are present, a broad distribution is observed.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2025

Drainage and lifetime of thin liquid films: the role of salinity and convective evaporation

We experimentally investigate the effect of salinity and atmospheric humidity on the drainage and lifetime of thin liquid films motivated by conditions relevant to air-sea exchanges. We show that the drainage is independent of humidity and that the effect of a change in salinity is only reflected through the associated change in viscosity. On the other hand, film lifetime displays a strong dependence on humidity, with more than a tenfold increase between low and high humidities: from a few seconds to tens of minutes. Mixing the air surrounding the film also has a very important effect on lifetime, modifying its distribution and reducing the mean lifetime of the film. From estimations of the evaporation rate, we are able to derive scaling laws that describe well the evolution of lifetime with a change of humidity. Observations of the black film, close to the top where the film ruptures, reveal that this region is very sensitive to local humidity conditions.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2024

Improving propulsive efficiency using bio-inspired intermittent locomotion

Many swimmers, especially small to medium-sized animals, use intermittent locomotion that differs from continuous swimming of large species. This type of locomotion, called burst-and-coast, is often associated with an energetic advantage. In this work, we investigate the intermittent locomotion inspired by fish locomotion but applied to a propeller. The energy consumption of burst-and-coast cycles is measured and compared to the continuous rotation regime. We show that a substantial drag ratio between the active and passive phases of the motion, as observed in fish, is critical for energy savings. Such a contrast can be obtained using a folding propeller that passively opens and closes as the propeller starts and stops rotating. For this reconfigurable propeller, intermittent propulsion is found to be energetically advantageous, saving up to 24% of the energy required to cruise at a given speed. Using an analytical model, we show that intermittent motion is more efficient than continuous motion when the drag reduction in the coast phase exceeds 65%. For fish-like locomotion, this threshold seems to be closer to 30%. A formal analogy allows us to explain the difference between propeller propulsion and fish locomotion.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2023

Flow past a sphere translating along the axis of a rotating fluid: Revisiting numerically Maxworthy's experiments

We compute the flow induced by the steady translation of a rigid sphere along the axis of a large cylindrical container filled with a low-viscosity fluid set in rigid-body rotation, the sphere being constrained to spin at the same rate as the undisturbed fluid. The parameter range covered by the simulations is similar to that explored experimentally by Maxworthy [\textit{J. Fluid Mech.}, vol. 40, pp. 453-479 (1970)]. We describe the salient features of the flow, especially the internal characteristics of the Taylor columns that form ahead of and behind the body and the inertial wave pattern, and determine the drag and torque acting on the sphere. Torque variations are found to obey two markedly different laws under rapid- and slow-rotation conditions, respectively. The corresponding scaling laws are predicted by examining the dominant balances governing the axial vorticity distribution in the body vicinity. Results for the drag agree well with the semi-empirical law proposed for inertialess regimes by Tanzosh \& Stone [\textit{J. Fluid Mech.}, vol. 275, pp. 225-256 (1994)]. This law is found to apply even in regimes where inertial effects are large, provided rotation effects are also large enough. Influence of axial confinement is shown to increase dramatically the drag in rapidly rotating configurations, and the container length has to be approximately a thousand times larger than the sphere for this influence to become negligibly small. The reported simulations establish that this confinement effect is at the origin of the long-standing discrepancy existing between Maxworthy's results and theoretical predictions.

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