The new research article by Bastiaan Veltkamp, Krassimir Velikov and Daniel Bonn appears on the cover of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics.
The researchers investigated the mechanism of ‘slipperiness’ of solid surfaces covered with a thin layer of polymeric fluids. For Newtonian fluids this thin layer can be completely drained if the impact velocity is high. However the elastic effects from polymeric fluids can lead to the contrary effect: if the impact velocity is high, these fluids obey the tendency to retract back into the contact. This explains the extreme slipperiness of thin layers of polymeric fluids on surfaces.
Read the article here: https://doi.org/10.1017/jfm.2022.884