UNC Researchers Say Pipe Shape Impacts Spread of Chemicals

Researchers at UNC have discovered that the size and the shape of a pipe or duct greatly impacts how liquid flows through it.

“If you have pipes of different shapes you can image water flowing through the pipes,” said Professor Richard McLaughlin, one of the two primary researchers. “What we were interested in is characterizing how a dye or a contaminant or a drug would be distributed as it was flowing down the pipe.”

This field is called fluid dynamics. McLaughlin, along with fellow UNC math professor Roberto Camassa used advanced mathematics to gain an in depth understanding of what at first appears to be a simple process.

Their research could be used to improve manufacturing, like the mixing of chemicals, or in the medical field, to study blood flow.

“We’re quite excited about it. We think it will have applications in microfluidics, blood flow in smaller capillaries,” said McLaughlin.

Their work began using theoretical models and computer simulations then they moved to testing their theories in a physical lab. And the results surprised them.

They found that when fluid flows through a rectangular pipe with a length twice as long the width, the fluid acts similar to how it would if it was flowing through a circular pipe.

Camassa admits this is a pretty hard concept to wrap your head completely without understand the math involved.

“We’re asked how to explain it in simple, physical terms and we get some of it without math,” said Camassa, “but it’s clear that we can’t go all the way, at least now right now, with just purely physical thinking.

But McLaughlin is excited about the far reaching effects of their research and the interest coming from outside of the math community.

“As mathematicians it’s pretty rare that you get a result that you can explain to everybody,” said McLaughlin.