Fluid mechanics of tea poured from a teapot

When tea is poured from a teapot, we often find some tea travels down the underside of the spout and eventually detaches and drips. This phenomenon has been termed “the teapot effect”. This is often the cause of frustration and conventional wisdom provides us with certain solutions to reduce the cha...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Ahsan, Eatsham
Other Authors: Chiew Yee Meng
Format: Final Year Project (FYP)
Language:English
Published: 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10356/75239
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author Ahsan, Eatsham
author2 Chiew Yee Meng
author_facet Chiew Yee Meng
Ahsan, Eatsham
author_sort Ahsan, Eatsham
collection NTU
description When tea is poured from a teapot, we often find some tea travels down the underside of the spout and eventually detaches and drips. This phenomenon has been termed “the teapot effect”. This is often the cause of frustration and conventional wisdom provides us with certain solutions to reduce the chances of dripping, from special pouring methods to applying butter on the underside of the spout. However, we didn’t know much about the reasons behind the phenomenon and physicists often attributed it to surface tension and capillary action. Unsatisfied by this reasoning, some scientists, in the 1950s, started to look into the phenomenon and since then many have proposed various theories for the mechanism involved and have identified a myriad of factors that may cause the teapot effect. Some of these theories and factors were analysed and tested in this study. The phenomenon is also not exclusive to teapots and has been observed during pouring from a wine bottle and when rain flows down window frames. Lessons from these instances helped identify some additional factors and possible to solutions to prevent the teapot effect from occurring.
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spelling ntu-10356/752392023-03-03T17:21:21Z Fluid mechanics of tea poured from a teapot Ahsan, Eatsham Chiew Yee Meng School of Civil and Environmental Engineering DRNTU::Engineering::Civil engineering::Water resources When tea is poured from a teapot, we often find some tea travels down the underside of the spout and eventually detaches and drips. This phenomenon has been termed “the teapot effect”. This is often the cause of frustration and conventional wisdom provides us with certain solutions to reduce the chances of dripping, from special pouring methods to applying butter on the underside of the spout. However, we didn’t know much about the reasons behind the phenomenon and physicists often attributed it to surface tension and capillary action. Unsatisfied by this reasoning, some scientists, in the 1950s, started to look into the phenomenon and since then many have proposed various theories for the mechanism involved and have identified a myriad of factors that may cause the teapot effect. Some of these theories and factors were analysed and tested in this study. The phenomenon is also not exclusive to teapots and has been observed during pouring from a wine bottle and when rain flows down window frames. Lessons from these instances helped identify some additional factors and possible to solutions to prevent the teapot effect from occurring. Bachelor of Engineering (Civil) 2018-05-30T05:23:10Z 2018-05-30T05:23:10Z 2018 Final Year Project (FYP) http://hdl.handle.net/10356/75239 en Nanyang Technological University 40 p. application/pdf
spellingShingle DRNTU::Engineering::Civil engineering::Water resources
Ahsan, Eatsham
Fluid mechanics of tea poured from a teapot
title Fluid mechanics of tea poured from a teapot
title_full Fluid mechanics of tea poured from a teapot
title_fullStr Fluid mechanics of tea poured from a teapot
title_full_unstemmed Fluid mechanics of tea poured from a teapot
title_short Fluid mechanics of tea poured from a teapot
title_sort fluid mechanics of tea poured from a teapot
topic DRNTU::Engineering::Civil engineering::Water resources
url http://hdl.handle.net/10356/75239
work_keys_str_mv AT ahsaneatsham fluidmechanicsofteapouredfromateapot