Tubeless Siphon Flow of Room Temperature Liquid Metal

Abstract

Tubeless siphon flow of liquid metal was made possible by way of sucking the fluid via a syringe pump with a rubber tube. Through adjusting the flow rate and tube diameter, the liquid column height and diameter can be changed accordingly. A theoretical model was derived to predict the flow configuration thus enabled. Adding micro copper particles evidently increased the extensional viscosity of liquid metal. With the increase of particle concentration, the enhancement of tubeless siphon becomes more remarkable. The intermetallic compound CuGa2 produced by corrosion was considered as the reason for the variation of rheological property of liquid metal.