EPC 410

INTERNSHIP REPORT

Dept. of Physics , IIT Delhi

Nov 12, 2013
Levitation of Drops on Liquid Nitrogen Surface
(Reverse Leidenfrost effect)
Laboratoire de Statistique Physique, Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, France
(May 2013- July 2014)
Under
Mokhtar Adda-Bedia
Presented by,
SUMIT KUMAR
2010PH10873

Leidenfrost Effect(Introduction)
The Leidenfrost eect is a phenomena where if a liquid drop is put over a
surface which is hotter than the boiling point of the liquid, the drops would
not evaporate rapidly and rather a thin layer of vapor would be developed
between the interface of drop and surface which allows the drop to skitter.

Consider water drop on a frying pan. It skitters over it.

If the pans temperature goes beyond the leidenfrost point (above 100
degree in this case), the water drops skid on the layer of vapor

Experiment
Investigate Reverse Leidenfrost effect
In this case relatively hotter drops are placed on surface of liquid
nitrogen
Droplet will levitate on the surface of liquid nitrogen on a thin film of
nitrogen vapor
The drop will eventually cool to a low enough temperature that it can no
longer evaporate the nitrogen, the thin film disappears, and the frozen
droplet sinks below the surface
We put different types of drops to observe their behavior- water, ethanol,
acetone, Glycerol, Silicon oil, mercury, solid objects
AIM:
1) Part 1- studied the time of the leidenfrost eect of drops of water+fastoat of
various densities with size and tried to make a correlation between them including
the sinking condition where the drops no longer levitates but still shows the
leidenfrost eect.
2) Part 2- The motion of ethanol drop is studied through a Labview program
which detects the drop over the surface and calculate the co-ordinates of the
same.With these data we can calculate the velocity of the drop and plot it as function
of time giving us an understanding of how the drops dynamics.

Experimental setup

Polystyrene was used to make the

container with double pane window to
view through it in order to measure the
time and sinking conditions.
The window panes has holes for the
intake and exhaust of compressed air
Inside the container there is large pyrex
container with another pyrex beaker.
The beaker is kept on black painted
aluminium block which in turn is
supported by a layer of foam
We have used a Nikon lens controlled by
Pixel Ink which captures the frame and
adjusts the basic controls including gain,
brightness, shutter speed etc.

Experiment (Part-1)

The density of fast float+water varies from 1.020 g/cm3 to 2.8 g/cm3 in our
experiment.
The time for leidenfrost eect for a single drop of xed size and xed density is
averaged over 10 data points.
RESULTS
We have found that some drops with high density which sinks, increases in
volume and then comes to the surface for levitation.
The time of levitation varies over the size of the drops.
The time of leidenfrost eect is the time over which there is layer of vapour
between drop and the liquid nitrogen irrespective of levitation and sinking.
The levitating time of the drops does not depend on density

Experiment (Part-1)

Experiment (Part-1)

Morphogenesis of the drop

Experiment (Part-2)

Dynamics of the ethanol drops over liquid nitrogen surface

It goes on moving even though leidenfrost effect ends
This motion is interesting as it goes on bouncing on the walls and
sometimes it becomes circular and again shows the billiard like
motion
Devising a Lab- view program to detect the drop over the surface
and measure its co-ordinates

Experiment (Part-2)

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Experiment (Part-2)

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Experiment (Part-2)

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Experiment (Part-2)

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