elastic Leidenfrost effect tagged posts

Coupling the Leidenfrost Effect and Elastic Deformations to Power Sustained Bouncing, Nature Physics, DOI: 10.1038/nphys4194

Water droplets float in a hot pan because of Leidenfrost effect. Now, physicists have discovered a variation: the elastic Leidenfrost effect. It explains why hydrogel balls jump around on a hot plate making high-pitched sounds. Physicist Scott Waitukaitis (Leiden University / AMOLF) stumbled across a YouTube video of bouncing hydrogel balls on a hot plate and was so inspired that he decided to write an NWO Veni grant proposal to explore the phenomenon.

The dance of water droplets in a frying pan is a well-known phenomenon called the Leidenfrost effect. The warm undersides of the droplets vaporize so quickly that they float around on a cushion of vapor...