From August 31 to September 2, 2025, Peking University hosted the JFM/FLOW Symposium China: From Fundamentals to Applications in Fluid Mechanics, a landmark event that brought together global leaders in fluid mechanics research.
Yue Yang – Peking University has recently been appointed as an editorial board member of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics. To celebrate, they participated in a Q&A with the Journal.
Daniel Chung – University of Melbourne has recently been appointed as an editorial board member of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics. To celebrate, they participated in a Q&A with the Journal.
Members of the Flow Editorial Board have each selected one recent article to highlight as an example of the best and brightest being published in the journal.
Prof.-Dr. Shijun Liao – Shanghai Jiao Tong University has recently been appointed as an editorial board member of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics. To celebrate, Shijun Liao participated in a Q&A with the Journal.
JFM Rapids is a well-established section in JFM that continues to provide a highly visible venue for short, high-quality, articles addressing timely research challenges of broad interest. The Rapids editors have selected the most interesting recent articles to inspire and motivate your submission.
2024 JFM-Flow China Symposium: from fundamentals to applied mechanics, was an a landmark event co-hosted by the School of Aeronautic Science and Engineering at Beihang University, Beijing and arttended by 160 local experts and 3000 online viewers in China.
JFM Rapids is a well-established section in the JFM that continues to provide a highly visible venue for short, high-quality, articles addressing timely research challenges of broad interest. The Rapids editors have selected the most interesting recent articles to inspire and motivate your submission.
Lian-Ping Wang, Southern University of Science and Technology in China has recently joined the Journal of Fluid Mechanics Editorial Board for JFM Rapids. To celebrate, Lian-Ping Wang participated in a Q&A with the Journal.
The first best paper prize will recognise an Emerging Scholar who published work in 2023 and the winner will be announced later this year.
Tamer Zaki (Johns Hopkins University) has recently joined the Journal of Fluid Mechanics Editorial Board for JFM Rapids. To celebrate, Tamer participated in a Q&A with the Journal.
Sergio Pirozzoli of Sapienza University of Rome has recently been appointed as an editorial board member of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics. To celebrate, Sergio participated in a Q&A with the Journal.
Professor Yongyun Hwang, Imperial College London has recently been appointed as an editorial board member of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics. To celebrate, Yongyun participated in a Q&A with the Journal.
Read the press release online: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1032091
The 2024 Batchelor Prize has been awarded to Cambridge Author, Professor Charles Meneveau, Johns Hopkins University. Professor Meneveau will receive the plaudit in recognition of his high-impact fundamental contributions to the study of turbulence and wall-bounded flows, and for bringing insightful and rigorous fluid mechanics to the science of wind turbines and wind farms for the benefit of society. …
A spotlight on JFM Rapids, a well-established section in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics [JFM] that continues to provide a highly visible venue for short, high-quality, articles addressing timely research challenges of broad interest. In this collection, the Editors of JFM Rapids each explain why they selected one article that presents exciting results with exceptional impact on currently active fluid mechanics research.
In the following video, Professor Barton Smith of Utah State University explains his work on the fluid dynamics of a baseball pitch.…
Professor Colm-cille Caulfield, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Fluid Mechanics (JFM) discusses his first published paper in JFM. Multiple linear instability of layered stratified shear flow Colm also give us insight into changes that have occurred in the publishing process, over the past 30 years.
Straws can make drinking easier, but modelling the flow in them can be hard; doing so successfully could help scientists across disciplines better understand a range of complicated systems.
Professor Colm-cille Caulfield, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Fluid Mechanics (JFM) discusses his career. Colm discusses common themes in his research. As well as his favourite fluid type. Colm also give us insight into his favourite JFM paper, and advice for students and authors.
Suspended particles make fluid flows complicated. If particles are attractive, aggregates can grow and shrink dynamically adding another level of complexity. A recent Tutorial Review in FLOW breaks down the way researchers try to understand these systems.
We were excited to hold the JFM/FLOW 2023 China Symposium in Hefei in July 2023
Professor Colm-cille Caulfield discusses his first year as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics (JFM). Colm discusses his expectations of being Editor of the journal, what helped him prepare to take on the role and what policies he is personally proud to be a part of steering.
Blues fans out there may be familiar with the Led Zeppelin classic ‘When the Levee Breaks’, but what about when the levee forms? In particular, how do natural levees form in such an organised and well-engineered process?
Rahil Valani (Monash University) explains how superwalking droplets form when a bath of oil is vibrated at two different frequencies, and how this phenomena is related to quantum theory and wave-particle duality. Research by Rahil Valani at Monash University
The Lutetium Project film a water droplet impacting on a superhydrophobic cone-shaped surface and the results are breathtaking. Research by Pierre Chantelot at the University of Twente.
A study on duck swimming behaviour published in JFM secures the 2022 Ig Nobel prize in physics for Zhi-Ming Yuan, Minglu Chen, Laibing Jia, Chunyan Ji and Atilla Incecik
September 16th 2021 marked the 34th anniversary of the Montreal Protocol, one of the most successful climate initiatives in United Nations history.…
When a hydrogel bead is dropped onto a water droplet the fluid is lifted up from the surface creating some incredible structures such as the ‘reverse crown’ and the ‘dancing ballerina’.…
Why does cotton candy disintegrate in air? What happens when you add droplets to candy floss? And how is it made in the first place?…
When a drop of salty water is evaporated on a hydrophobic surface, “salt globes” that mirror the shape of the drop grow.…
Tom Mullin at the University of Oxford introduces some of his favourite fluid dynamics experiments… covering a wide range of fluid mechanics phenomena including turbulence, wave formation, Rayleigh-Taylor instability, viscous effects, magnetism, electricity, segregation, disorder and chaos.…
Our bodies are complicated networks. Our vasculature – the veins, arteries, and capillaries that shuttle blood, oxygen, and nutrients to every part of us – is itself a complex series of interconnected tubes that span a wide range of length scales.…
We were excited to hold the JFM/FLOW 2022 China Symposium in Xi’an in June 2022. This is the second time Journal of Fluid Mechanics (JFM) has held a symposium in China but the first which included our new journal Flow. …
On July 25th, 2021, a wall of sand engulfed the Chinese city of Dunhuang. As the dust rolled in, the air in the city took on a nearly opaque burnt orange hue that made travel practically impossible.…
Researchers use deflections of trees by wind to infer unknown wind speed.
Figure 1. A late-18th century lens grinding lathe made by Andrea Frati. This device currently resides at the Museo Galileo – Institute and Museum of the History of Science The device above might not look familiar, but the object it produces (or used to produce) probably would.…
When Alban Sauret and his colleagues at FAST laboratory tried to create a tsunami in a lab setting, it would be fair to say they had their work cut out.
A recent study in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics has tried to understand and model the role of porosity present in the birds' wing on the combined aerodynamic and acoustic performance.
A new study in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics by an international team of scientists is on the cutting edge of research.
Are you passionate about fluid mechanics and its applications? Are you looking to develop your writing skills and engage with an audience that's just as enthusiastic on the subject as you are? We have the competition for you.
Experiments visualising the airflow when breathing, speaking and laughing, show that wearing a mask indoors can drastically reduce the risk of transmission of airborne particles.…
The tail (flagellum) of the sperm does not simply push the body, but uses a rhythmical beating with pushing and fraying over a 4-beat pattern, as demonstrated in the video.…
When navigating strong crosswinds birds adjust the angle of their body into the wind, whilst keeping their head fixed on the target destination, in order to maintain forwards motion.…
Current underwater vehicles are either difficult to manoeuvre making them unsuitable for sensitive work, or are extremely expensive. Gabe Weymouth and his team at the University of Southampton are designing new underwater robots based on the Plesiosaur – the dinosaur behind the legend of the Loch Ness Monster – which are much smaller, cheaper and more energy efficient.…
From rotating impellers stirring air into a liquid, to a turbulent jet entering a moving flow, mixing processes are essential to almost every industrial application you can think of.…
When an object, such as an aircraft or submarine, moves through a fluid it generates a ‘wake’ behind it which can be used by monitoring tools to detect its size and position.…
When catching prey underwater snakes use two main techniques: the frontal strike and the lateral strike. By studying real snakes in the lab at ESPCI/MNHN, Marion Segall was able to recreate the setup using a 3D-printed snake head and laser visualisation techniques, which allowed for the forces involved in each strike to be measured.…
The manufacturing process for toothpaste involves mixing together several fluid and solid components to create the non-Newtonian polymer used to clean your teeth.…
Termites live underground in termite mounds to protect themselves from the heat of the desert, but how do they keep their mounds cool?…
Before a tornado forms the pressure drop at the centre emits a dull tone at 5-10Hz which can be detected hours before it becomes dangerous.…
Congratulations to Alexander J. Smits on being awarded the 2020 Batchelor Prize ‘for seminal contributions to our understanding of the structure of wall turbulence at very large Reynolds and Mach numbers, especially through the design of innovative experiments and measurement devices, and also for pioneering work on bio-inspired propulsion and on drag reduction using modified surfaces’.…
Rogue Waves occur when a larger wave appears in a group of smaller waves. In some circumstances these can lead to an exaggerated ‘Spike Wave’, or a crashing wave resembling the Great Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai.…
Star-nosed moles are able to smell underwater by quickly exhaling and re-inhaling air bubbles as they search for prey. The bubbles are trapped close to the moles nostrils by a ring of tiny pink tentacles, which gives rise to the name ‘star-nosed’.…
Jellyfish stingers reach an acceleration 50 times faster than that of a bullet as they are ejected from stinging capsules under high pressure.…
The Coconut Rhinoceros Beetle is an invasive species that if left alone would decimate citrus crops across California. To prevent this from happening, John Allen and his team at the University of Hawai’i have been working to hunt the insects down before they are able to reach the West Coast of the USA.…
The leaves of stinging nettles are covered in ‘pipette-like’ stingers which penetrate the skin on contact and deposit a small amount of poison.…
There is no doubt that sea ice in the polar regions is melting, but what is the exact role that this plays in the global climate system?…
One of the clean-up methods used following an oil spill is to burn the fuel on the surface of the ocean.…
The flow of air around a sail is very different to that of a wing, but both generate significant lift force.…
Cyclists can use up to 90% of their energy overcoming drag, which was the motivation behind the work of Ivaylo Nedyalkov at the University of New Hampshire, who was able to measure the force on each individual cyclist in a train formation to determine the best position to reduce your overall drag.…
The Batchelor Prize for 2020 is awarded to Professor Alexander J Smits, Eugene Higgins Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University
By improving our understanding of turbulent flow over canopies we can design better cities to improve air quality. This is just one of the applications of the work of Alfredo Pinelli, a professor at City University of London working on Large Eddy Simulations (LES) of turbulence.…
Current underwater vehicles are rigid in structure which limits their suitability for many tasks required for ocean exploration. Francesco Giorgio-Serchi is working with a team at the University of Southampton to design new robots based on squids and octopuses that are made entirely from silicone.…
Removing water from your ear canal by shaking requires an acceleration 10 times that of gravity according to research from Sunny Jung at Virginia Tech (now Cornell).…
Following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, scientists at the University of Cambridge have been studying underwater plumes to try to understand how the Earth’s rotation affects the spread of oil.…
Pollen is the main source of protein in a honey bees diet and so it’s essential that they are able to carry enough of it safely back to the hive.…
The air density on Mars is 1/100th of that on Earth which means that current airborne vehicles cannot be used to explore the planet.…
How are dandelion seeds able to travel distances of over 150km across oceans, with only small feathery bristles and the power of the wind?…
Citrus fruits contain small pockets of liquid which burst upon contact releasing a jet of strong smelling oil into the air.…
Air-tables create a thin film of air capable of supporting objects and causing them to levitate. By adding grooves to the table or the object, Professor John Hinch at the University of Cambridge was able to control the objects motion and describe the resultant acceleration in terms of a simple scaling relationship involving gravity and the aspect ratio.…
Using the surface tension of water and a hydrophobic coating on their legs, many insects are able to walk on water.…
Freezing bubbles are not only beautiful, but also demonstrate incredibly complex physics. Here, Professor Jonathan Boreyko explains how bubbles freeze with examples of slow motion videos filmed in his laboratory at Virginia Tech.…
Measuring the forces present in an avalanche using light. Amalia Thomas from the University of Cambridge explains how to measure the forces between colliding particles in an avalanche based on their photo-elastic response and refractive index.
The brazil nut effect describes the movement of large particles to the top of a container after shaking. The same effect also occurs in avalanches where large blocks of ice and rocks are seen on the surface, and in a box of cereal where the large pieces migrate to the top and the smaller dusty particles remain at the bottom.
Five-time Olympic Biathlon Skiing Champion Martin Fourcade enlisted the help of two scientists - Caroline Cohen and Christophe Clanet at Ecole Polytechnique - to help to decide the best type of wax to use on his skis in the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics. Here's how they did it...
Female musicians from the northern islands of Vanuatu use the water surface as an instrument to create a variety of unique sounds – slap, plunge, plow – which they accompany with singing.…
Vortex ring collisions are incredibly beautiful and also incredibly complex. Ryan McKeown of Harvard University explains his amazing experiments visualising colliding vortex rings and their transition to turbulence.…
With the nomination period for the 2020 Batchelor Prize coming to a close at the end of the month (31st May 2019), Dr Tom Crawford spoke to the previous winners to find out more about the legacy of the award.
By bouncing elastic spheres across the surface of Bear Lake in Utah, researchers have discovered the physics behind stone skipping. The mechanism of ‘water walking’ occurs when a deformed sphere rotates continuously across the surface of the water giving the appearance that the sphere is literally walking on water.…
Cooking oil in a frying pan can be dangerous when the ‘explosive’ droplets touch your skin, but new research shows that they also increase the risk of indoor air pollution if not properly ventilated.…
Plesiosaurs ruled the oceans during the time of the dinosaurs with specially adapted flippers that enabled them to swim faster and with greater efficiency than any other animal.…
Renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar power are becoming commonplace across the world, but yet it often seems that we are still searching for the renewable resource that will revolutionise the energy industry.…
A robot that swims like a dinosaur, simulations of industrial mixing, and how to hide an object by controlling its wake – take a sneak peek at the latest in fluid dynamics research.…
Learn how snakes catch prey underwater, what birds do when flying through gusts, and how sperm swim. This video is part of a collaboration between FYFD and the Journal of Fluid Mechanics featuring a series of interviews with researchers from the #APSDFD 2017 conference.…
The third and final event of the JFM China Symposia was held at Tsinghua University in Beijing with a record attendance of over 300 delegates representing the full-scope of academic profiles, from professors to undergraduate students.…
The JFM China Symposia visited the second city of the tour at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou. Another action-packed day of scientific talks began with a fitting reference to the foundation of JFM by George Batchelor, courtesy of Keith Moffatt1: “Until 1956 there was no journal that was devoted to fluid dynamics in all its experimental and theoretical aspects, papers in fluid dynamics being widely spread over the literature of engineering, physics and mathematics.…
The first JFM Symposia in China began today in Shenzhen with an opening from the President of Southern University of Science and Technology, Shiyi Chen, praising the prestige and reputation of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics as he welcomed us to the futuristic Shenzhen campus. …
As mentioned in a blog entry about Bangalore, the Journal of Fluid Mechanics held its first series of mini-symposia in India in 2017.…
In addition to the full-day symposia in Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai for the 2017 JFM Symposia in India, editorial board members of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics also conducted lab visits in each of the three cities.…
In 2017, the Journal of Fluid Mechanics held their first series of mini-symposia organised by editorial board members from the journal and world-class researchers based in India – notably Bangalore, Chennai and Mumbai.…
Following the feedback from our customers, we are excited to announce two trials for related content have started on Cambridge Core!
Tracking the invasive Rhinoceros Beetle in Hawai’i, studying how stinging nettles inject their toxin, and investigating the mechanism used by jellyfish to attack their prey – step inside the latest in Fluid Mechanics research.…
Learn how termites are inspiring new building designs, how the star-nosed mole can sniff underwater, and what goes into making your toothpaste!…
Get your summer sports kick with a peek at some of the latest research on sailing aerodynamics, cycling groups, and getting that pesky water unstuck from your ear after swimming!…
Listening to tornadoes to increase warning times and save lives, studying the effect of ice on the combustion of oil spills, and investigating how sea ice affects our climate – discover the latest research in Fluid Dynamics.…
Climate change is currently one of the biggest threats to human existence. Carbon sequestration – the storage of CO2 underground – is one innovative method that could help to reduce the amount of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere and ultimately save the human species.…
Dandelion seeds that outperform man-made parachutes, designing the flow over forest canopies, and bee-inspired micro-robots for exploring Mars – catch up on the latest in fluid dynamics research.…
Spring has almost sprung which means we’re taking a look at the fluid dynamics of bees, how to build squid-inspired robots and modelling oil plumes eight years on from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.…
Oil jets from citrus fruits, balls that bounce on water, and self-propelled levitating plates – step inside some of the latest fluid dynamics research!…
How long will humankind survive? Besides the fact that we have been able to eliminate ourselves with nuclear weapons for decades, even without a third world war, the challenge to take care of the resources of our planet remains; we need to use them in a way that our children and their children can have a place on Earth as well. In this blog post Andreas Losch discusses his recent review article in the International Journal of Astrobiology, The need of an ethics of planetary sustainability
The opportunity to showcase some of the exciting archaeological research currently underway on medieval Ethiopia in a journal as widely read as Antiquity is important.
Q&A with Editor-in-Chief of the Precision Medicine Journal, Dame Anna Dominiczak, for International day of Women and Girls in Science
This is the first post in our new series: “Conversations with Authors.” For our inaugural post, we asked Dr. Vesla Weaver to meet (virtually) with Dr.…
The English language contains a wealth of insults and terms of abuse. Personal insults attack the core and immutable aspects of a person, such as their race, ethnicity, appearance, age, or a disability.…
The March article of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International is the first blog of the series. The blog is written by Dr Dami Ajayi, Specialty Doctor, Barnet Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust and Trainee/Blog Editor, BJPsych International.…
Some disability-related names have dropped out of usage, because they are now considered to be offensive due to their origins. Down Syndrome (Trisomy 21) is one example.…
How long will humankind survive? Besides the fact that we have been able to eliminate ourselves with nuclear weapons for decades, even without a third world war, the challenge to take care of the resources of our planet remains; we need to use them in a way that our children and their children can have a place on Earth as well. In this blog post Andreas Losch discusses his recent review article in the International Journal of Astrobiology, The need of an ethics of planetary sustainability
It is an article of faith among ordinary Filipinos that American troops will die with Filipino troops defending Philippine claims to the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea (SCS).…
More and more research is finding inflammation as a potential contributing factor towards to the development of various mental illnesses. A systematic review was conducted to determine the association between parasitic infection and mental illnesses in various African populations. Two parasite groups were evaluated; helminths and protozoans, and four mental illness classifications; depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, schizotypal disorders and unspecified mental illnesses.
This is the first post in our new series: “Conversations with Authors.” For our inaugural post, we asked Dr. Vesla Weaver to meet (virtually) with Dr.…
The March article of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International is the first blog of the series. The blog is written by Dr Dami Ajayi, Specialty Doctor, Barnet Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust and Trainee/Blog Editor, BJPsych International.…
Q&A with Editor-in-Chief of the Precision Medicine Journal, Dame Anna Dominiczak, for International day of Women and Girls in Science
The opportunity to showcase some of the exciting archaeological research currently underway on medieval Ethiopia in a journal as widely read as Antiquity is important.
Listen to @BBCRadio4's Start the Week, featuring @NineDotsPrize winner @jkkusiak, talking about her book, 'Radically Legal'. Learn how a group of ordinary people inspired the book when they reclaimed over 240,000 apartments back from corporate landlords 🔗
Start the Week - ‘Left behind’, but not forgotten - BBC Sounds
Tom Sutcliffe with Paul Collier, Joanna Kusiak and Matthew Xia.
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