71th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics (November 18, 2018 — November 20, 2018)

V0038: Water Meets Wax: The Consequences of Explosive Vaporization

Authors

• Kyle Schneider, University of St. Thomas
• Thomas Shepard, University of St. Thomas
• Stephan Cole, University of St. Thomas

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/APS.DFD.2018.GFM.V0038

In this video we show the results that occur when dumping water into boiling wax in the presence of an open flame.  As the water first hits the wax it vaporizes with a correspondingly quick and large expansion of volume that throws wax from the container.  Interestingly, a secondary mode of wax break-up is made visible through high-speed video shot at 5400 frames per second.  This secondary mode appears to result from water trapped within the wax droplets that were expelled by the initial bulk vaporization.  It is speculated that this trapped water experiences a slight delay in heating that corresponds with a delayed vaporization and further break-up of the wax droplets.