Creating Super-Hydrophobic Materials With Lasers

Swim in water menacingly...

That is why all half decent evil masterminds puts lasers on sharks for the best of both worlds effect.
 
Pornography for Physicists & Engineers. I'm going to send this to Jacque Fresco asap.
 
Sharks with lasers would be a fail then since their prey would pop out of the water out of reach. I feel lied to.
 
I wonder what a material like this would do for surfboards.
 
So if I jump into a swimming pool from the 5 meter jumping board wearing a super-hydrophobic suit, do I just hit the water like a rock, or do I sink into the water only to shoot back out at high velocity?
 
Ducman69 said:
So if I jump into a swimming pool from the 5 meter jumping board wearing a super-hydrophobic suit, do I just hit the water like a rock, or do I sink into the water only to shoot back out at high velocity?
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I'll let you know, once my mind stops melting.
 
Cobalt35 said:
Would this allow super-fast submarines?
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probably not :)

I'm not a hydrodynamics engineer or anything but I thought the biggest issue with boats and what not is not so much the drag of water against the hull but the fact they have to push all the water out of the way that's in front of them.

But who knows, Would be easy enough to test just get a little pill sized object and coat it in a hydrophobic material (this or one of the off the shelf ones) and test it by dragging it through water with a force gauge or something.
 
If only I could get this in a clear coat for my car. No more car washes! Sometime to put on the windshield/windows would be sweet too.
 
Since the structure pattern is on micro and nano level, I guess curved surfaces will be just as effective. The biggest question is how resistant the material is to wear and tear.
 
sfsuphysics said:
probably not :)

I'm not a hydrodynamics engineer or anything but I thought the biggest issue with boats and what not is not so much the drag of water against the hull but the fact they have to push all the water out of the way that's in front of them.
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That is literally what drag is! *slap* :p
 
Cobalt35 said:
Would this allow super-fast submarines?
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And the answer would be no.

Basically what this is doing is the same thing as those bigass tropical leafs, whatever they are called, where water just spills off them. It takes advantage of natural water tension to prevent the water from sticking to the surface using lots of little hairs/spikes in the surface, so the water effectively floats over the spikes never coming in contact with the flat surface that would break the water tension and "stick" the water to it.

I already have cans of this stuff that creates that kind of texture on what you spray, and this just does more or less the same thing but micro-texturing with a laser instead of a spray.

Of course in the real world, we notice limitations of this stuff. As the surface gets dirty/dusty, it loses its perfect texture and water can stick to it again until washed and dried. But the laser etched surface isn't likely to have the sprays other problem of wearing off from physical contact. Some people tried spraying it on their garage floor, but found wherever they walked ended up losing the hydrophobic qualities.
 
Ducman69 said:
That is literally what drag is! *slap* :p
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I know what drag is, my point is that if you effectively reduce that to zero, you'll still have the issue of pushing water out of the way of the boat which increase the faster it goes, same with airplanes/rockets/etc, air "dragging" along the hull is not a significant retarding force compared to smashing headfirst into the air and pushing it out of the way.
 
ok maybe I don't know what drag is... but the point is the same, if you do not have water rubbing against a surface you'll still have resistance due to the water :p
 
OlIv0rIolI said:
Since the structure pattern is on micro and nano level, I guess curved surfaces will be just as effective. The biggest question is how resistant the material is to wear and tear.
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That's the biggest issue. I worked at a plant that made stainless steel, and one of their "flagship" products was anti-microbial stainless steel. What they did was make very small scratches (think brushed stainless steel, but on a much much smaller scale). The scratches were sharp enough to cut the cell walls of any micro-organism (think bacteria, etc.) killing it.

I asked what the life span was of the "anti-microbial properties", and was told that was proprietary. But i know stainless, and also know what places that use stainless (kitchens, food processing plants, etc.) do to clean those surfaces. I can definitely state that any material that relied on micro/super micro scale structures isn't going to last more that a few weeks (maybe even days) before the surface is worn down too much to matter.
 
sfsuphysics said:
I know what drag is, my point is that if you effectively reduce that to zero, you'll still have the issue of pushing water out of the way of the boat which increase the faster it goes, same with airplanes/rockets/etc, air "dragging" along the hull is not a significant retarding force compared to smashing headfirst into the air and pushing it out of the way.
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My point was that form drag has always been 99.9% of "drag" in a liquid. That's why a longer submarine or arrow or car doesn't have noticeably more drag despite the extra skin friction area. So you basically said, "its not drag, its drag". :p
 
spugnor said:
That's the biggest issue. I worked at a plant that made stainless steel, and one of their "flagship" products was anti-microbial stainless steel. What they did was make very small scratches (think brushed stainless steel, but on a much much smaller scale). The scratches were sharp enough to cut the cell walls of any micro-organism (think bacteria, etc.) killing it.

I asked what the life span was of the "anti-microbial properties", and was told that was proprietary. But i know stainless, and also know what places that use stainless (kitchens, food processing plants, etc.) do to clean those surfaces. I can definitely state that any material that relied on micro/super micro scale structures isn't going to last more that a few weeks (maybe even days) before the surface is worn down too much to matter.
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That's what I figured given that the researcher wants to use it in sewer and water treatment applications. It seems like the surface might not stand up to those kind of abrasive environment, but who knows only tests will tell.

As to the anti-bacterial SS, I doubt the customers for that would be kitchen and appliance manufacturers. Grade 4 surface SS is usually the standard and probably cheaper too. The customers are most likely from the medical field.
 
Two people could play table tennis, with a drop of water, if you laser the table and the surfaces of the bats?
 
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