Under the right conditions, the cavitation bubbles can collapse with enough energy that visible light is emitted, a phenomenon known as sonoluminescence. My son worked on such a project as he was pursuing his physics PhD. A photo from one of his experiments used to be on the Wikipedia page on sonoluminescence, but I don’t think it’s still there. Regardless, it is very cool to see!
There was some gun channel on RUclips that created sololuminescence by shooting a block of ballistics gel. The bullet created a pocket in the gel which sealed on the ends before rapidly compressing in the center, which created that phenomenon
And the sonoluminescence destroys most of what we know about light ie. about electromagnetic waves. It’s hard to explain this phenomena without incorporating aether into the explanation and the physics denies aether existence.
As a child, and still as an adult, I have had a love for science. This helps my children to have the same love for learning. You make great videos! Thanks
While I was working in kitchen design/sales about 40 years ago, we displayed a futuristic stainless steel sink which cleaned the dishes by ultrasound. One of the odd selling features was that if you were tired after a long day on your feet, it was suggested that you could sit on the kitchen worktop with your feet in the sink full of water, switch on and get your feet all tingly and fresh feeling. We didn’t sell any of the sinks! 🤪
@@SciAntGaming Price probably, it would only become practical for large scale cleaning. I'm pretty sure industries already use this for rust removal and other things. It's sad that they didn't think of that first.
Just got recertified for soldering (IPC J-Standard) and in the J-STD-001 guidebook there is actually a rule that you cannot use ultrasonic cleaning on a CBA (Conputer board assembly) that has solder and/or components on it. This video is a fine demonstration as to why this is a rule.
This actually causes a lot of drag with standard propellers. There are some fancy new props which prevent cavitation and they are 30% more fuel efficient (which is an absolutely crazy number). They still are super expensive but could revolutionize the boating industry.
PAC makes propellers using Bio-mimicry and sells them in government contracts around the world. I did some work for the owner of the company and had some good chats with him, smart guy and a really fascinating subject in bio-mimicry.
I wish there was some more information about safety of those devices. I don't know about those small units but industrial ones have a designated safety zone where no one should be present when the device operates. This is due to the fact that the 40+ kHz vibrations don't only affect the water in the device. They propagate into the air and then affect things outside the device as well. Like retina in your eyes, that is immersed in a fluid, so this 40+ kHz energy is doing damage to your eyes, even if though it has been greatly reduced and cannot be felt directly. I don't know it for sure but I would bet that the buzzing we hear is some harmonic of this ultrasound that falls within our hearing range, and that would imply that the ultrasound is in the air too. I wonder and love to hear if anybody noticed if/how one's pets react when an ultrasound cleaner is turned on somewhere nearby.
Those small units don't have enough energy to affect the user in any meaningful way. Hell, I've even stuck my finger in one once to see what would happen and, spoiler alert, it didn't do shit. So, considering the inverse square law, I wouldn't expect any effect on your eyes or sensistive organs that are, hopefuly, many centimeters away
@@andresaofelipe I just checked specs of few ultrasonic devices, both cleaners and air humidifiers for home use. They are around 30-40 Watt, so as you've said - they should not pose much danger, if any. I'd assume, no more than 3-4 Watts get converted to ultrasound that gets outside of the device, so provided one does not sleep next to the device it should be safe. Then again, it should be trivial to test it just by putting a rusty nail in a glass of water next to the ultrasonic cleaner. If the nail gets a bit less rusty throughout a night we could be sure of ultrasounds leakage, though I doubt the residual ultrasound could do much cleaning in such a setup.
What is your source for this information? We have a very big ultrasonic cleaner at work the size of a van but there is no designated safety zone around it. The noise when passing it is very high pitched and I am sensitive to it while others barely notice it. I wonder if just passing is damaging my body in any way?
nah the noise is from the device not being 100% stable. face wands are similarly loud. i mean stable as in like suspended or sitting in a way so that the vibrations are absorbed and we can’t hear the rattling from some parts touching stationary objects.
yep. stronger ultrasonic can damage your hearing. just because you can't hear it doesn't mean your eardrums are vibrating, just means the vibration is out of your hearing hair cells range
Cavitation, like with those shrimp/crabs that shoot bubbles. I think there are Pistol Shrimp, Mantis Shrimp and another one I can't remember. (and probably others).
Cavitation can also happen in cars' cooling system when you modify the engine to have a higher rev limiter so the water pump spins faster than what it was rated for, thus leading to cavitation
Most water pumps in engines are not designed well hydraulically to begin with. They are made to somewhat move water and be cheap to produce. They won't have properly sized suction ports compared to their discharge ports, cheap rudimentary impeller configurations with no cut water machined into the volute. It never occurred to me that an engine spinning faster than designed could cause the water pump to cavitate, that's a really good point.
I have seen the effect where an engine has been modified and the rev range increased greatly and the standard water pump impellor looks like it has been eaten by moths. There have also been a few design cock ups where water pump impellor blade shape was all wrong and led to cavitation and destruction of the pump impellor. That prop that he shows us at the end of video looks very much like an impellor from a jet ski propulsion pump and they are well known for cavitation errossion of the impellor when the engine has been highly tuned and running higher rpm.
So that’s why in Subnautica when you put your submarine into overdrive, it eventually overheats and you get a notification saying “Warning: Vessel Cavitating.”
Can’t remember which shop, but was one of the big names for the Cummins and they had a build that flattened the pump fins (one of the non cast pumps) which I’ve never seen before.
And to think someone above you in the comments said that the propeller damage looks like electrolysis. And be said that even AFTER seeing the cavitation bubbles in the picture he showed us.
i use Ultrasonic bath to clean pair of glasses when i work. super effective at removing the dirt off without damaging anything. thank you for the in depth explanation, you are an amazing teacher xoxo keep up all the great videos
Another fun fact, cavitation has been a major problem specifically in diesel truck engines where the cylinder sleeves get eaten away over time and eventually leak or even explode!
very educational, thanks for that - I thought the cleaning just came from shaking loose the dirt as it resonates at a difference frequency to the object itself
@@ashifarman4813 lol that’s what I was gonna say! and, if I’m understanding cavitation right, then that’s essentially what it’s doing? it’s creating a pressure so hard that it shakes the dirt off ig? but idk I’m just spit balling
If I had you as a science /chemistry/ physics teacher when I was in school, I would likely have turned out to be a completely different person. That said, I wouldn’t trade anything and everything in existence for my family. SO, thank you for wrinkling my brain with every single one of these videos, I’m glad I subbed when I did! Good fortune and endless prosperity to you and your family!
It's because sound, in high enough frequency's and vibrations gets converted into energy and heat pressure waves, like Tesla said." If you want to find the secrets to the universe. Think in terms of Energy, Frequency, and Vibration. "
we use 40kw ultrasonic units to weld copper wire (wire splicing) as well as put tabs on devices. Best method. Far better than soldering or simple twisting like wire nut. The ultrasonic action cleans the oxide off the individual strands and allows pure copper fusion (mostly). Very difficult to weld tin coated copper as the tin does mix into the heat-zone in uncontrollable forms causing a flawed joint. This method often specified by military and other harsh environment equipment manufacturers. Very fast process.
@@Reddotzebra no vacuum. ambient air. there are two jaws, one is fixed, the other mounted at right angle to the long axis of the transducer so it vibrates back and forth, as a calibrated down force brings the jaws together with copper simply laid over each other in the jaws. Other metals weldable as well, but it doesn't work well with dissimilar - this has to be tested well to determine compatibility!
Amazing video to show how much our intuition often underestimates simple phenomena that can cause great damage if left unrecognized or benefits if understood and applied correctly.
@@ThePrufessa Of course they can, look up “cavitation tuna tails”… since tuna doesn’t have nerve ends on their tails, they can swim as fast as they need (mostly to escape predators), and end up with their tails damaged.
@@ThePrufessa no i think they mean that since dolphins use sonar, if they swim fast while using sonar they might injure themselves with their own sonar/ultrasound.
I forget which one however either the Mantis Shrimp or the Pistol Shrimp, do that whole cavitation gig with their punch/snap and it super-heats the immediate area.
Don't ever stick your hands inside if it when running it. Jeep it full of water up until you don't hear the buzzing sound, and keep to that line. Also, don't leave running for to long because it causes hearing damage.
I remember in the 90s talk about how in the future we'd all have ultrasonic washing machines and dishwashers. Still waiting for them. At least I have a small one to clean small objects.
I have no idea why we don't have ultrasonic dish cleaners TBH. Even a comparatively small model could be used to clean food residue and microorganisms off plates and cutlery, even if you had to put in the dishes one by one it would save a ton of water and detergents.
The soda example was very good, we used these in a lab to knock foam and air bubbles out of products. Takes a fair bit of time in more viscous things but it never gets old watching all the air bubbles race to the top in thinner stuff, makes like an underwater wave as they bunch up in eachother. Super cool
@@dasher_9715 I think it might leave marks if you leave your hands in there too long, but I imagine the pain is too great for anyone to leave their hands in long enough to cause damage
To do list: Get a stainless steel Car with a bunch of transducers at strategic points, turn it on and watch the dirt, water and mess just resonate off the body.
Great educational videos. I like your work. But there is something that is not clear to me in this particular one. I do not really see why you say that the acoustic pressure is proportional with frequency. I would say it is proportional to amplitude. In fact when you are trying to create cavitation using ultrasound it works better with lower frequencies. Indeed pressure waves causes the gas bubbles to oscillate. When these bubbles collapse, they create these shock waves, high pressures and high temperature you are mentioning. By using lower frequencies you allow the bubbles to grow bigger before they collapse and cavitation gets more violent. Another, more detailed point, is that bubbles are most of the time not vapor bubbles (it is not the water boiling) but are just bubbles from the different gases dissolved in water. This is the same as when opening a soda bottle. The pressure drops in the bottle and the dissolve CO2 forms bubbles. You actually need extremely high negative pressure to vaporize water (in the gigapascal). There is one experiment you can do: if you boil water you will get rid of the dissolved gas. Using this boiled water in your ultrasonic cleaner will not work well at all since cavitation will be very hard to initiate. Hope this clarifies things. Keep up your good work.
I run out of interesting things to learn and look into or projects to dink around with but this guy always manages to find and create top tier videos thanks again AL!
You can put your hand / fingers in an ultrasonic bath. It isn't comfortable, but not immediately damaging. The waves penetrate right through your skin and you can actually feel it in your joints the most.
You’ll also be getting Sonoluminescence in the bubbles, and that’s where the heat from the collapsing bubbles come from. It’s hard to see on that small of a scale because you aren’t holding the bubbles in place with the pressure waves, and they constantly disperse. Technically, cleaning with micro fusion heat.
I remember something like that ! Holding a bubble with soundwaves and actually showing us its sonoluminescence I forgot who made the video, maybe the thought emporium
4 million subs is absolutely ridiculous. This channel is a gold mine of useful, informative science. All ages. He describes most phenomenon in a perfectly navigable way.
You can synthesize nanomaterials using ultrasonicator. We call it Sonochemical synthesis and it's principle is based on the cavitation bubbles. Edit: We use another type which has horn or probe. Nice video 👍
I suspect if you tune the frequency emitted to an object’s resonance frequency I suspect this would be more efficient and powerful like what opera singers can do to crystal glasses, love this though, shows what frequency can do when thought about deeply and outside the box
In the video it is causing damage to the metal, if the principal could be scaled up or down we could literally use it for loads of things as once you know a objects resonance frequency if you match that in theory it shatters, this could be done with harmful cells inside the body without damage to surrounding tissue, it could cut rock/ metal with laser accuracy and efficiency so where and how we can build becomes different, it could be extremely destructive if used irresponsibility and as I hope is obviously by the explanation, you would also I believe have to phase conjugate the waves if you wanted laser like precision tho
I wish you would have explained why the foil dissolves but the bolt does not. With enough time, would the bolt dissolve too? Also, when the foil completely dissolves is there sediment at the bottom of the water or is it just suspended in the water?
Can microphones even hear/record ultrasonic waves? (I know you couldn't hear it and your speakers probably can't play it)... but can microphones record it (so it could be seen in software)?
They can, This is actually how measuring devices work in some places :) (you know, those little thingies that you can hold against a wall to measure le length of a room) Sorry if my english is crap
I'd wager a condenser with a particularly small diaphragm would be able to capture ultrasonic frequencies, but a typical DAC lowpasses everything above 20KHz - this is in fact a critical part of how digital audio is able to accurately reproduce an analog signal (see Technology Connections' excellent video on the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem). Even analog tape has issues capturing high frequencies depending on the tape speed. As noted above, the equipment exists, but it's not going to be your typical recording rig.
Some mics can, and if your recorder or soundcard etc got high enough bitrate, you can actually record and/or process it; with enough bitrate it's like a high speed camera for sounds; you can play the recorded sounds at a slower bitrate, play them slower, to bring the ultrasound frequencies into the audible range, and there are some devices that can process the sound in real time and generate a pitched down version of the sound as it comes, like an extreme voice changers; it can be used for example to hear the sonar noises of bats. Btw, did you know pet rats giggle when tickled? People usually don't hear it because it's in the ultrasound range, but they do giggle.
The Amplitude of the Ultra Sonic cleaner is what causes the cleaning action. It's Amplitude creates the strong pulsating Pressure on the liquid that removes the dirt on the object. And the Ultrasonic frequency (above human hearing) is Resonant to the molecules of the object to be cleaned.
So the thought occurs that to get the most effective action some form of analysing equipment would be beneficial and the ability to fine variably tune the amplitude to best suit the volume of water and density ofobject being cleaned. I would guess one size or amplitude does not fit all applications to best effect.
Cavitation is also a big problem on military submarines. Boats that were designed for stealth operations aren't too stealthy when the prop is making hundreds of sonic booms per second. In fact the design of submarines' props (and other Naval ship propellers) are classified because of all of the R&D that went into propellers that could spin faster without cavitation.
Yes and no. Yes in that is one way to describe a sonic boom, or to say a sonic boom is the gasious analogy. And it very much effects propellers, a sonic boom will destory them! No; in that there is not a phase change involved at any speed that aircraft or propellers travel, even if you exceed the speed of sound. You would have to travel exceedingly fast to generate plasma from low pressure air, and the air would have to be extremely hot for a plasma phase to even be possible
Engines with wet cylinder liners can suffer acutely from cavitation errosion as you described. Caterpillar engines had that problem about 40+ years ago. The solution was to use a good quality corrosion inhibitor in the coolant. The cavitation created a porous liner in the lower half of the cylinder sleeve. It just looked like a brown stain from the inside of the liner. Our organisation fitted Fleetgaurd water filters which doses the water with inhibitor plus removed rust and sand particles from the water. This is important as many engines still had casting sand left from the block casting process.
Not sure if ever commented on one of your videos before. This one is actually pretty good in its usefulness. Just enough depth to inspire thought without restricting it with too much specific direction.
I am thinking that its something along the lines of abrasive wear (possibly with the aid of an abrasive material suspended in the water)... and stress/metal fatigue that ends up producing somewhat larger fragments.
@@martinhirsch94 no, it's the pressure of the cavitation bubble-collapse that destroys the metal. as he discusses in the video, extremely tiny nucleation sites along the surface are subjected to incredibly-huge pressure gradients when the cavitation bubbles almost-instantaneously collapse. at those scales, that is more than enough power to simply rend any metal. that's why submarine propeller design is such a guarded secret: they need to be able to spin fast and generate mad power, but cannot create any cavitation, because it causes lots of noise for passive sonar (in addition to wearing the trailing edge, making them even noisier).
What's really cool is ultrasonic wire bonding used in the semiconductor (and other) industries. You vibrate a wire on a metal surface so the two metals cold weld together
Cavitation also makes it easier to locate the boat or submarine ...(For anyone who has NOT read Tom Clancy's novel "The Hunt for Red October"). I wonder if it would be more effective if a steady supply of gas (like CO2) was fed into the unit while it is on...?
Hi actionlab, your video reminds me about a seemingly mad not recognized scientist (likely without a title or formal education). I used to have the links to his videos - where he - almost bored - presented his findings, that a mix of ultrasound (not 42 kHz, but he mentioned 43 kHz) and magnetic waves - did not dissolve metal - but - made it bent, cringe, split - in ways which I found quite natural to look at - yet challenging for me to get a grasp on. He for instance split a solid metal block (appearing some 10 x 10 x 20 centimeter) of aluminium, into cringing, bending, stalagmites - which were rectangular, and pencil sized. It was not looking "Beautiful" or "symmetric" or like that- but it appeared as if these maybe 100-200 pencil-sized stalagmites were evenly formed. I explained his experiments by imagining that some resonance occurred. The pencil-shaped pegs/stalagmites bent a little bit - also still not homogenously - but bent, like you would expect a tree or a straw to bend for the wind. Not a lot - but enough to create curiosity. Do you have any knowledge about this? It is like - there used to be some 6, 7 or so videos. The man looked mad. But he was certainly not mad. He was visibly bored with his findings. He set up his demonstration - for the camera - as if he actually had other more important things to do - but - that he kind of had to do this boring thing here. I have not been able to find his videos since around 2016-2017 - I have looked and searched - without success. Have you ver come across them? Well. Thanks for your great channel, which I follow in many ways - like here - and in shorts.
Thank you, now I understand the connection between low pressure on the rear side of s propeller, vapour pressure, cavitation bubbles and attacking metal! 😃👍
I kinda think they used sound to carve and even move megalithic stones like for the pyramid… then we were hit with a catastrophe and are now on a reboot.
In hydraulic pumps, cavitation can happen so strongly and so fast the entire pump can stop working in just a few seconds. It's strong enough you can hear the cavitation, which is super-bad. It typically happens where there's an undetected restriction on the fluid inlet side of the pump/line, pressure drops to the point of a vacuum pressure on the inlet side, bubbles form and collapse, eroding the gears, the housing, everything in seconds potentially.
Fun fact, in the film Star Wars: Solo the explosion resulting from the train derailing is actually a cavitation bubble that was filled separately and edited in the film.
My mechanic friend recently made a video about this phenomenon destroying the cylinder sleeves in diesel engines. The vibrations from one cylinder travel through the coolant to the next, causing erosion.
Under the right conditions, the cavitation bubbles can collapse with enough energy that visible light is emitted, a phenomenon known as sonoluminescence. My son worked on such a project as he was pursuing his physics PhD. A photo from one of his experiments used to be on the Wikipedia page on sonoluminescence, but I don’t think it’s still there. Regardless, it is very cool to see!
That is actually extremely interesting, I did not know that.
There was some gun channel on RUclips that created sololuminescence by shooting a block of ballistics gel. The bullet created a pocket in the gel which sealed on the ends before rapidly compressing in the center, which created that phenomenon
@@joske7804 The Thought Emporium has a pretty good video on the subject of sonoluminescence.
Punching Water So Hard, Light Comes Out.
@@joske7804 search out a video or two on the Mantis Shrimp hunting and you'll see cavitation and sonoluminiscence, it's a good watch
And the sonoluminescence destroys most of what we know about light ie. about electromagnetic waves. It’s hard to explain this phenomena without incorporating aether into the explanation and the physics denies aether existence.
I don't understand how this man never runs out of video ideas, what a crazy work ethic
agreed
fr man remember watching this guy during 6th grade and im in 11th grade now. crazy. the quality only has gone up.
I also remember watching in sixth grade… I’m now in my own home with two kids 🥲😅
That's James Orgill, PhD. He has a PhD in Chemical Engineering.
It's not hard if you have knowledge about the universe that others don't :p
As a child, and still as an adult, I have had a love for science. This helps my children to have the same love for learning. You make great videos! Thanks
Do you know who is given the title of "the FATHER of science"?
Sure beats TikTok, Facebook and Instagram as a source of science.
@@johanea almost anything beats that
@@Yesbutactuallyno123 other than videos made for schools
@@lowercase18 the dude who named his kid science lol
While I was working in kitchen design/sales about 40 years ago, we displayed a futuristic stainless steel sink which cleaned the dishes by ultrasound. One of the odd selling features was that if you were tired after a long day on your feet, it was suggested that you could sit on the kitchen worktop with your feet in the sink full of water, switch on and get your feet all tingly and fresh feeling. We didn’t sell any of the sinks! 🤪
Omg that is such an obvious application of this technology and it existed 40 years ago?? How come no one bought one??
They just use a bigger piezoelectric membrane of the same general type that's in atomizers right?
The sound is obnoxious and the price might have been too high but that was cool tech.
@@SciAntGaming Price probably, it would only become practical for large scale cleaning. I'm pretty sure industries already use this for rust removal and other things. It's sad that they didn't think of that first.
I’m a mechanic and ultrasonic cleaners are widely used for parts cleaning and I’d love one of those sinks in my workshop!
I'm a polymer and formulation chemist.
You demo just gave me huge ideas for solving a number of issues!!!!
Many thanks for this brilliant treatise!!!!
ur a chemist, thats pretty cool
A chemist?? That’s amazing man
@@acornflake5074 I mean, technically so is Jesse Pinkman
@@jackiec498 uh?
Looks like an Eureka moment to me, good luck with whatever you are doing pal👍
We use an Ultrasonic Cleaner to clean Vinyl records at Wonderland Records. It's really neat that we use sound to clean physical sound mediums.
Just got recertified for soldering (IPC J-Standard) and in the J-STD-001 guidebook there is actually a rule that you cannot use ultrasonic cleaning on a CBA (Conputer board assembly) that has solder and/or components on it. This video is a fine demonstration as to why this is a rule.
This actually causes a lot of drag with standard propellers. There are some fancy new props which prevent cavitation and they are 30% more fuel efficient (which is an absolutely crazy number). They still are super expensive but could revolutionize the boating industry.
that's really cool. what are they called?
@@sainttom6785 Sharrow Marine
@@DnBFinch thanks!
PAC makes propellers using Bio-mimicry and sells them in government contracts around the world. I did some work for the owner of the company and had some good chats with him, smart guy and a really fascinating subject in bio-mimicry.
Magnetism
I wish there was some more information about safety of those devices. I don't know about those small units but industrial ones have a designated safety zone where no one should be present when the device operates.
This is due to the fact that the 40+ kHz vibrations don't only affect the water in the device. They propagate into the air and then affect things outside the device as well. Like retina in your eyes, that is immersed in a fluid, so this 40+ kHz energy is doing damage to your eyes, even if though it has been greatly reduced and cannot be felt directly.
I don't know it for sure but I would bet that the buzzing we hear is some harmonic of this ultrasound that falls within our hearing range, and that would imply that the ultrasound is in the air too. I wonder and love to hear if anybody noticed if/how one's pets react when an ultrasound cleaner is turned on somewhere nearby.
Those small units don't have enough energy to affect the user in any meaningful way. Hell, I've even stuck my finger in one once to see what would happen and, spoiler alert, it didn't do shit. So, considering the inverse square law, I wouldn't expect any effect on your eyes or sensistive organs that are, hopefuly, many centimeters away
@@andresaofelipe I just checked specs of few ultrasonic devices, both cleaners and air humidifiers for home use. They are around 30-40 Watt, so as you've said - they should not pose much danger, if any.
I'd assume, no more than 3-4 Watts get converted to ultrasound that gets outside of the device, so provided one does not sleep next to the device it should be safe.
Then again, it should be trivial to test it just by putting a rusty nail in a glass of water next to the ultrasonic cleaner. If the nail gets a bit less rusty throughout a night we could be sure of ultrasounds leakage, though I doubt the residual ultrasound could do much cleaning in such a setup.
What is your source for this information? We have a very big ultrasonic cleaner at work the size of a van but there is no designated safety zone around it. The noise when passing it is very high pitched and I am sensitive to it while others barely notice it. I wonder if just passing is damaging my body in any way?
nah the noise is from the device not being 100% stable. face wands are similarly loud. i mean stable as in like suspended or sitting in a way so that the vibrations are absorbed and we can’t hear the rattling from some parts touching stationary objects.
yep. stronger ultrasonic can damage your hearing. just because you can't hear it doesn't mean your eardrums are vibrating, just means the vibration is out of your hearing hair cells range
1:55 Frequency means waves would be shown closer together, not taller
Cavitation, like with those shrimp/crabs that shoot bubbles. I think there are Pistol Shrimp, Mantis Shrimp and another one I can't remember. (and probably others).
Mantis shrimp breaks bones. Those things are no joke and their cavitation bubbles cause additional damage.
Your name sounds like Deuce Gala!
Yeas watch Smarter everyday's video on this shrimp topic.
@E Van on his foot on the boat. I've seen it.
True facts
thanks for showing me yet another use for sound based superpowers.
Cavitation can also happen in cars' cooling system when you modify the engine to have a higher rev limiter so the water pump spins faster than what it was rated for, thus leading to cavitation
Most water pumps in engines are not designed well hydraulically to begin with. They are made to somewhat move water and be cheap to produce. They won't have properly sized suction ports compared to their discharge ports, cheap rudimentary impeller configurations with no cut water machined into the volute. It never occurred to me that an engine spinning faster than designed could cause the water pump to cavitate, that's a really good point.
I have seen the effect where an engine has been modified and the rev range increased greatly and the standard water pump impellor looks like it has been eaten by moths. There have also been a few design cock ups where water pump impellor blade shape was all wrong and led to cavitation and destruction of the pump impellor. That prop that he shows us at the end of video looks very much like an impellor from a jet ski propulsion pump and they are well known for cavitation errossion of the impellor when the engine has been highly tuned and running higher rpm.
So that’s why in Subnautica when you put your submarine into overdrive, it eventually overheats and you get a notification saying “Warning: Vessel Cavitating.”
Can’t remember which shop, but was one of the big names for the Cummins and they had a build that flattened the pump fins (one of the non cast pumps) which I’ve never seen before.
The mantis shrimp can also punch so fast that it leaves a cavitation bubble to collapse with a temperature hotter than the surface of the sun
Cavitation is a serious problem with ship propellers. Which is why they need regular maintenance.
And to think someone above you in the comments said that the propeller damage looks like electrolysis. And be said that even AFTER seeing the cavitation bubbles in the picture he showed us.
I think it makes submarines easier to detect by other submarines via passive sonar, if I’m not mistaken.
now they have no excuse to blame it on metal rusting in sea water..
it's like having tiny pistol shrimps clean stuff for you.
I will show your video to the guys working on our pumps. It's one of the best explanations I've seen.
Practical Engineering also has a great video or possibly many, about cavitation. Some specifically in pumps etc.
This dude does the dopest science experiments.
i use Ultrasonic bath to clean pair of glasses when i work. super effective at removing the dirt off without damaging anything. thank you for the in depth explanation, you are an amazing teacher xoxo keep up all the great videos
Another fun fact, cavitation has been a major problem specifically in diesel truck engines where the cylinder sleeves get eaten away over time and eventually leak or even explode!
very educational, thanks for that - I thought the cleaning just came from shaking loose the dirt as it resonates at a difference frequency to the object itself
@@ashifarman4813 lol that’s what I was gonna say!
and, if I’m understanding cavitation right, then that’s essentially what it’s doing? it’s creating a pressure so hard that it shakes the dirt off ig? but idk I’m just spit balling
@@gigibeal Shock waving the dirt off is more how I think of it.
@@howardosborne8647 yup yup!! That too
If I had you as a science /chemistry/ physics teacher when I was in school, I would likely have turned out to be a completely different person. That said, I wouldn’t trade anything and everything in existence for my family. SO, thank you for wrinkling my brain with every single one of these videos, I’m glad I subbed when I did! Good fortune and endless prosperity to you and your family!
I can't be the only person who thought "What would happen if I put my finger in it?"
That's what she said
I thought that too!
All the boogers n turd residue will come off
But seriously, imagine if it cleaned girls nail polish off.
It's because sound, in high enough frequency's and vibrations gets converted into energy and heat pressure waves, like Tesla said." If you want to find the secrets to the universe. Think in terms of Energy, Frequency, and Vibration. "
we use 40kw ultrasonic units to weld copper wire (wire splicing) as well as put tabs on devices. Best method. Far better than soldering or simple twisting like wire nut. The ultrasonic action cleans the oxide off the individual strands and allows pure copper fusion (mostly). Very difficult to weld tin coated copper as the tin does mix into the heat-zone in uncontrollable forms causing a flawed joint. This method often specified by military and other harsh environment equipment manufacturers. Very fast process.
So basically it does vacuum welding without the vacuum?
@@Reddotzebra no vacuum. ambient air. there are two jaws, one is fixed, the other mounted at right angle to the long axis of the transducer so it vibrates back and forth, as a calibrated down force brings the jaws together with copper simply laid over each other in the jaws. Other metals weldable as well, but it doesn't work well with dissimilar - this has to be tested well to determine compatibility!
Amazing video to show how much our intuition often underestimates simple phenomena that can cause great damage if left unrecognized or benefits if understood and applied correctly.
Fun fact: Dolphins could, in theory, swim much faster than they already do, but they hold back so cavitation doesn’t eat away their tails.
Stop it. They can't move their tails that fast.
@@ThePrufessa Of course they can, look up “cavitation tuna tails”… since tuna doesn’t have nerve ends on their tails, they can swim as fast as they need (mostly to escape predators), and end up with their tails damaged.
@@ThePrufessa no i think they mean that since dolphins use sonar, if they swim fast while using sonar they might injure themselves with their own sonar/ultrasound.
@@indigosunset70 I reckon if they swam around in a tight circle fast enough they could disappear up their own ass🤣
I forget which one however either the Mantis Shrimp or the Pistol Shrimp, do that whole cavitation gig with their punch/snap and it super-heats the immediate area.
Amazing that you just posted this, I just bought an ultrasonic cleaner a few hours ago. Love your videos man you are the bomb!
And you think it was a coincidence?
All you do is observed.
Ill ask you, does it hurt if you put your finger in it?
@@vripscript I too was thinking of this question while watching the video
You bought it four years ago didn’t you 🤭
Don't ever stick your hands inside if it when running it. Jeep it full of water up until you don't hear the buzzing sound, and keep to that line. Also, don't leave running for to long because it causes hearing damage.
Topics are getting better in the channel......!
Geologists and clay mineralogists use a similar technique to disaggregate clay particles to individual clay crystals for x-ray diffraction analysis
The condensation of this much information into a 5.5 minute video is an art form.
We’re getting closer and closer to understanding Mega Man 2’s Bubble Man’s true devastating power
The damage on that propellor is from cavitation bubbles exploding
I remember in the 90s talk about how in the future we'd all have ultrasonic washing machines and dishwashers.
Still waiting for them.
At least I have a small one to clean small objects.
I have no idea why we don't have ultrasonic dish cleaners TBH. Even a comparatively small model could be used to clean food residue and microorganisms off plates and cutlery, even if you had to put in the dishes one by one it would save a ton of water and detergents.
So this is how those weird shrimps create their shockwaves
That foil being destroyed is crazy.
The soda example was very good, we used these in a lab to knock foam and air bubbles out of products. Takes a fair bit of time in more viscous things but it never gets old watching all the air bubbles race to the top in thinner stuff, makes like an underwater wave as they bunch up in eachother. Super cool
So it’s the same phenomenon that occurs with mantis shrimp, right? Never realized there was a practical application for this; Very cool!
some restoration videos have these things they are so cool
Holy cow, that's so crazy! Thank you for sharing,I really enjoyed the video!
I use ultrasonic cleaners quite often where I work. But the water is pretty dirty so I don't get to see thing melt off like this. Very cool
I wouldn't be surprised if he said "If you don't believe how strong it is, watch what happens when I put in my finger"
I was looking for this comment. I guess it would be highly unsafe lol.
I did some research and apparently it hurts like hell but no permanent damage
@@sephypantsu I thought it would completely peel off the skin because of the way it ate the metal
@@dasher_9715 I think it might leave marks if you leave your hands in there too long, but I imagine the pain is too great for anyone to leave their hands in long enough to cause damage
oh wow, this is awesome
To do list: Get a stainless steel Car with a bunch of transducers at strategic points, turn it on and watch the dirt, water and mess just resonate off the body.
Time to rob a bank with my ultrasonic vault melter
Great educational videos. I like your work. But there is something that is not clear to me in this particular one. I do not really see why you say that the acoustic pressure is proportional with frequency. I would say it is proportional to amplitude. In fact when you are trying to create cavitation using ultrasound it works better with lower frequencies. Indeed pressure waves causes the gas bubbles to oscillate. When these bubbles collapse, they create these shock waves, high pressures and high temperature you are mentioning. By using lower frequencies you allow the bubbles to grow bigger before they collapse and cavitation gets more violent.
Another, more detailed point, is that bubbles are most of the time not vapor bubbles (it is not the water boiling) but are just bubbles from the different gases dissolved in water. This is the same as when opening a soda bottle. The pressure drops in the bottle and the dissolve CO2 forms bubbles. You actually need extremely high negative pressure to vaporize water (in the gigapascal). There is one experiment you can do: if you boil water you will get rid of the dissolved gas. Using this boiled water in your ultrasonic cleaner will not work well at all since cavitation will be very hard to initiate. Hope this clarifies things. Keep up your good work.
I run out of interesting things to learn and look into or projects to dink around with but this guy always manages to find and create top tier videos thanks again AL!
What if the ultrasonic cleaner was big enough to fit a person, would he be able to take a bath in it? 😂
I'm afraid if it would eat our skin.
Um...not unless you want to remove to top layer of your skin.
You can put your hand / fingers in an ultrasonic bath. It isn't comfortable, but not immediately damaging. The waves penetrate right through your skin and you can actually feel it in your joints the most.
Or a 94 story building...
Fillings in your teeth could resonate.
Oh so now I know the logic behind how Thanos snap made people disappear into dusts
Wow, I just tried that with kitchen aluminum foil and after just a minute it began to punch holes!
where did you get a ultra sound cleaner ?
Talks about higher frequency- shows a picture with higher amplitude. He delivers info like a 1st grader reading a script
You’ll also be getting Sonoluminescence in the bubbles, and that’s where the heat from the collapsing bubbles come from. It’s hard to see on that small of a scale because you aren’t holding the bubbles in place with the pressure waves, and they constantly disperse.
Technically, cleaning with micro fusion heat.
I remember something like that !
Holding a bubble with soundwaves and actually showing us its sonoluminescence
I forgot who made the video, maybe the thought emporium
4 million subs is absolutely ridiculous. This channel is a gold mine of useful, informative science. All ages. He describes most phenomenon in a perfectly navigable way.
You can synthesize nanomaterials using ultrasonicator. We call it Sonochemical synthesis and it's principle is based on the cavitation bubbles.
Edit: We use another type which has horn or probe. Nice video 👍
I definitely heard a very high pitched ringing when u had the ultrasonic cleaner on. I'm sure I'm not the only one.
yeah he clearly said thats the sound of the machine not the ultrasonic noise
But what happens if you put your hand in it, or more appropriately, a hotdog?
I'm a connoisseur of concise physical explanations and that's a delicious treat you made, thank you!
Very cool! Does it hurt to put your hand in the water while it is on?
Yes, just what i was thinking🤔
Two questions :- 1)Why the shiny base of this device itself doesn't get eaten?
2) What if we put our fingers inside them!?
I suspect if you tune the frequency emitted to an object’s resonance frequency I suspect this would be more efficient and powerful like what opera singers can do to crystal glasses, love this though, shows what frequency can do when thought about deeply and outside the box
Don't it cause damage?
In the video it is causing damage to the metal, if the principal could be scaled up or down we could literally use it for loads of things as once you know a objects resonance frequency if you match that in theory it shatters, this could be done with harmful cells inside the body without damage to surrounding tissue, it could cut rock/ metal with laser accuracy and efficiency so where and how we can build becomes different, it could be extremely destructive if used irresponsibility and as I hope is obviously by the explanation, you would also I believe have to phase conjugate the waves if you wanted laser like precision tho
As soon as the machine started, that high pitched frequency irritated my ears, and now I’m having some loud tinnitus. Good times lol.
I wish you would have explained why the foil dissolves but the bolt does not. With enough time, would the bolt dissolve too? Also, when the foil completely dissolves is there sediment at the bottom of the water or is it just suspended in the water?
Having briefly worked on boats and jet skis I knew about cavitation but didn't understand it's dynamics . Thank you for expanding my knowledge.
ok but what would happen if i put my hand in it?
Nothing. Your skin won't catch resonnace with ultrasonic waves.
I was curious about thus too.
it would remove the skin from your hands and in 10 minutes you'd only have bare flesh on the hand
it cleans under your fingernails
Nothing, we use that at work to clean surgical instruments. I’ve done it lol
My conclusion: the blocks in the pyramids were made with sound.
Can microphones even hear/record ultrasonic waves? (I know you couldn't hear it and your speakers probably can't play it)... but can microphones record it (so it could be seen in software)?
Yes, but there are very specific ones that go beyond the human audible range such as 20hz -100khz
They can, This is actually how measuring devices work in some places :) (you know, those little thingies that you can hold against a wall to measure le length of a room) Sorry if my english is crap
I'd wager a condenser with a particularly small diaphragm would be able to capture ultrasonic frequencies, but a typical DAC lowpasses everything above 20KHz - this is in fact a critical part of how digital audio is able to accurately reproduce an analog signal (see Technology Connections' excellent video on the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem). Even analog tape has issues capturing high frequencies depending on the tape speed. As noted above, the equipment exists, but it's not going to be your typical recording rig.
Some mics can, and if your recorder or soundcard etc got high enough bitrate, you can actually record and/or process it; with enough bitrate it's like a high speed camera for sounds; you can play the recorded sounds at a slower bitrate, play them slower, to bring the ultrasound frequencies into the audible range, and there are some devices that can process the sound in real time and generate a pitched down version of the sound as it comes, like an extreme voice changers; it can be used for example to hear the sonar noises of bats. Btw, did you know pet rats giggle when tickled? People usually don't hear it because it's in the ultrasound range, but they do giggle.
Let us create a dishwasher with ultrasonic waves
The Amplitude of the Ultra Sonic cleaner is what causes the cleaning action. It's Amplitude creates the strong pulsating Pressure on the liquid that removes the dirt on the object. And the Ultrasonic frequency (above human hearing) is Resonant to the molecules of the object to be cleaned.
So the thought occurs that to get the most effective action some form of analysing equipment would be beneficial and the ability to fine variably tune the amplitude to best suit the volume of water and density ofobject being cleaned. I would guess one size or amplitude does not fit all applications to best effect.
Cavitation is also a big problem on military submarines. Boats that were designed for stealth operations aren't too stealthy when the prop is making hundreds of sonic booms per second. In fact the design of submarines' props (and other Naval ship propellers) are classified because of all of the R&D that went into propellers that could spin faster without cavitation.
Would cavitation affect aircraft propellers much like the boat propellers given water and air are both fluids?
Yeah, but not in the same amount of efficiency (fortunately lol)
Yes and no.
Yes in that is one way to describe a sonic boom, or to say a sonic boom is the gasious analogy. And it very much effects propellers, a sonic boom will destory them!
No; in that there is not a phase change involved at any speed that aircraft or propellers travel, even if you exceed the speed of sound. You would have to travel exceedingly fast to generate plasma from low pressure air, and the air would have to be extremely hot for a plasma phase to even be possible
Cavitation bubbles don't form in the air. Air is fluid but that doesn't make it a liquid.
Engines with wet cylinder liners can suffer acutely from cavitation errosion as you described. Caterpillar engines had that problem about 40+ years ago. The solution was to use a good quality corrosion inhibitor in the coolant. The cavitation created a porous liner in the lower half of the cylinder sleeve. It just looked like a brown stain from the inside of the liner. Our organisation fitted Fleetgaurd water filters which doses the water with inhibitor plus removed rust and sand particles from the water. This is important as many engines still had casting sand left from the block casting process.
Can it clean your teeth or is it dangerous?
And will women like it?
Not sure if ever commented on one of your videos before. This one is actually pretty good in its usefulness. Just enough depth to inspire thought without restricting it with too much specific direction.
no, it doesn't _dissolve_ the metal, it tears the metal into tiny particles due to the action of cavitation.
Would you say _disintegrate_ ? Or _disperse_ .
I don't think _dissolve_ is so wrong but different than _chemically_ dissolving.
@@louf7178 "dissolve" has a very specific meaning. specifically, it means that a solid becomes incorporated into a liquid...this ain't that.
I am thinking that its something along the lines of abrasive wear (possibly with the aid of an abrasive material suspended in the water)... and stress/metal fatigue that ends up producing somewhat larger fragments.
@@martinhirsch94 no, it's the pressure of the cavitation bubble-collapse that destroys the metal. as he discusses in the video, extremely tiny nucleation sites along the surface are subjected to incredibly-huge pressure gradients when the cavitation bubbles almost-instantaneously collapse. at those scales, that is more than enough power to simply rend any metal. that's why submarine propeller design is such a guarded secret: they need to be able to spin fast and generate mad power, but cannot create any cavitation, because it causes lots of noise for passive sonar (in addition to wearing the trailing edge, making them even noisier).
@@douglasharley2440 Yea, so disintegrated within the liquid is appropriate.
What's really cool is ultrasonic wire bonding used in the semiconductor (and other) industries. You vibrate a wire on a metal surface so the two metals cold weld together
What happens when you pour petrol on thermocol ?
Can this principle be used in cleaning clothes?🤔
sure why not? pants would come out as skirts after the threads are dissolved..
@@fidelcatsro6948 😅😂
Cavitation also makes it easier to locate the boat or submarine ...(For anyone who has NOT read Tom Clancy's novel "The Hunt for Red October"). I wonder if it would be more effective if a steady supply of gas (like CO2) was fed into the unit while it is on...?
First!
Yup
Geegee
imagine this guy at a science fair, he never runs out of great ideas
that's the best explanation on cavitation I've ever heard.
I search this pelcas ultrasonic cleaner machine, and found it on amazon,will see if need one
Extremely interesting. Physics is a fascinating subject, especially when the right person is explaining what is happening. Great little video.
One of the best of all your posts. This was new and interesting
Removing gas from liquid without vacuum. Freaking amazing!!!
I'd like to see what happens when you anodize aluminum in an ultrasonic cleaner
Hi actionlab, your video reminds me about a seemingly mad not recognized scientist (likely without a title or formal education). I used to have the links to his videos - where he - almost bored - presented his findings, that a mix of ultrasound (not 42 kHz, but he mentioned 43 kHz) and magnetic waves - did not dissolve metal - but - made it bent, cringe, split - in ways which I found quite natural to look at - yet challenging for me to get a grasp on.
He for instance split a solid metal block (appearing some 10 x 10 x 20 centimeter) of aluminium, into cringing, bending, stalagmites - which were rectangular, and pencil sized. It was not looking "Beautiful" or "symmetric" or like that- but it appeared as if these maybe 100-200 pencil-sized stalagmites were evenly formed.
I explained his experiments by imagining that some resonance occurred. The pencil-shaped pegs/stalagmites bent a little bit - also still not homogenously - but bent, like you would expect a tree or a straw to bend for the wind. Not a lot - but enough to create curiosity.
Do you have any knowledge about this? It is like - there used to be some 6, 7 or so videos. The man looked mad. But he was certainly not mad. He was visibly bored with his findings. He set up his demonstration - for the camera - as if he actually had other more important things to do - but - that he kind of had to do this boring thing here.
I have not been able to find his videos since around 2016-2017 - I have looked and searched - without success.
Have you ver come across them? Well. Thanks for your great channel, which I follow in many ways - like here - and in shorts.
Never underestimate even a small particle in Science.
Thank you, now I understand the connection between low pressure on the rear side of s propeller, vapour pressure, cavitation bubbles and attacking metal! 😃👍
I kinda think they used sound to carve and even move megalithic stones like for the pyramid… then we were hit with a catastrophe and are now on a reboot.
In hydraulic pumps, cavitation can happen so strongly and so fast the entire pump can stop working in just a few seconds. It's strong enough you can hear the cavitation, which is super-bad. It typically happens where there's an undetected restriction on the fluid inlet side of the pump/line, pressure drops to the point of a vacuum pressure on the inlet side, bubbles form and collapse, eroding the gears, the housing, everything in seconds potentially.
Your videos seem to improve in quality lately, congrats!
this is a cool thing to learn and to understand what is happening. Love to know how things work :D
I imagine sometime thought "Swishing stuff around seems to make it clean a bit, what if I swish it faster?" And eventually this happened
Awesome !!! try a non-newtonian fluid instead of water and see how the fluid reacts to ultrasonic vibrations
kavitation can also easily destroy pumps if the intake filter is blocked or to dirty.
Fun fact, in the film Star Wars: Solo the explosion resulting from the train derailing is actually a cavitation bubble that was filled separately and edited in the film.
Thanks for the Technical explanation it was a Perfect reminder ❤
My mechanic friend recently made a video about this phenomenon destroying the cylinder sleeves in diesel engines. The vibrations from one cylinder travel through the coolant to the next, causing erosion.