The flying chain strikes again

By Publications

Do you remember the YouTube video from Marcel and the relevant publications on the flying chain? Well, the flying chain strikes again!

The group has produced a new theoretical model for explaining the phenomenon that included the effects of fluctuations along the chain length. This model, backed up by experiments and numerical simulations, successfully predicted a number of features of the system, including the final height and velocity of the falling chain.

Read the publication from Eirik Grude Flekkøy, Marcel Moura and Knut Jørgen Måløy published on November 19th, 2019, under Frontiers in Physics (7:187) here: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2019.00187/full

Numerical simulations showing the evolution of the arch formation. The beads are all of equal size and properties, the larger beads are only drawn in order to track the beads which are colored blue when they are outside the horizontal extent of the container and given a brass color when they are not.
A remarkable self-sustained arch is formed when a long chain of metallic beads is dropped from a container. The chain reaches a statistical steady state but fluctuations along its length are always present, as seen in the image. In the background we see the Physics Department at the University of Oslo