Sound Increases the Efficiency of Boiling 96
hessian writes "Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology achieved a 17-percent increase in boiling efficiency by using an acoustic field to enhance heat transfer. The acoustic field does this by efficiently removing vapor bubbles from the heated surface and suppressing the formation of an insulating vapor film."
Re:USA should have some experience from Asia (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who BOILS BACON (nature's perfect food) really shouldn't be providing any culinary advice.
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Re:USA should have some experience from Asia (Score:5, Funny)
I find your ideas interesting and would like to subscribe to your newsletter, but I am *never* eating marshmallows at your place.
Re:USA should have some experience from Asia (Score:4, Funny)
I'm sure someone would enjoy it.
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Bacon is a fairly broad term, here in Ireland boiled bacon and cabbage is common and quite tasty actually. We're not boiling rashers, it's a large cut of meat and boiling is a perfectly valid way to cook it.
Ah, Ireland, always there to remind the world that English cooking isn't *quite* the worst.
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Grandparent poster appears to be American. They don't have anything that people from the rest of the world would even recognise as food. Americans can only detect two tastes - high fructose corn syrup, and hot sauce.
American bacon is bad enough even before they slice it to molecular thickness and fry it in cheap crappy oil until it's quite thoroughly burnt.
Re:USA should have some experience from Asia (Score:4, Funny)
it always amuses me when foreigners judge america by our lowest common denominator crap. you know, the stuff that's only available here due to our sprawling machine of industry which europeans apparently have a fetish for, since they can't seem to get over it when sublimating their envy through these pathetic insults.
for anything whatsoever that you attach cultural importance to, america can do it better; you'll just never find it at the shitty supermarket or wal*mart, which any native, who isn't penniless or functionally retarded, knows to avoid.
except cheese. i don't know what's up with that, but i'm sure that if we wanted to, we could.
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For cheese you just need to go to Wisconsin. Cheeses there regularly win international awards, and the cheese isles in the grocery stores are enormous (easily tripple the space that I see in my grocery store in California). As a transplanted Wisconsinite that is one of the things I miss most (followed closely by seasons).
USAian foods (Score:2)
California makes a lot of really great cheeses, so maybe you're just not going to the right stores. Whole Foods is a good start, or (if you're in the Bay Area), your local foodie or hippie place (Berkeley Bowl, Cheese Board, Piazza's, etc.) Cowgirl Creamery if you get there.
On the other hand, Japan has all kinds of amazing over-packaged overly-instant foods, some of which are available here, to balance out the delicate nutritious real stuff.
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aye, and i regret not being more adventurous while i was there... however, i have a fondness for french blue cheeses (e.g. raw milk bleu d'auvergne, and saint agur); are there domestic blue cheeses besides maytag? my understanding is that we don't. please prove me wrong.
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oh, it's good for a lot of things, i just meant that i wouldn't go there for "nice" food and drink, although it's gotten better in terms of some staple ingredients.
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well, yeah, things are pretty dire here; can't argue with that. i didn't make up the rules. :-/
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Whatever. I buy mine 10 slices per lb., SC.US No rind.
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American bacon is bad enough even before they slice it to molecular thickness and fry it in cheap crappy oil until it's quite thoroughly burnt.
I agree regarding the thickness (bacon tastes better with at least double the "normal" US thickness), but no one in America fries bacon in oil, crappy or otherwise. That's the fat from the bacon itself, and its spattering browning goodness is what creates the deliciousness.
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Your portrayal of the US is extremely one sided. There is much more to American cuisine than corn syrup and hot sauce. What about fat and rendered beef protein?
You could bake same corn syrup and hot sauce and top it with fat and rendered beef protein and have some delicious pizza. Or you cut mix some rendered beef protein with hot sauce, batter it in a corn/ corn syrup mix and deep fry it in fat. The options are endless.
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Actually you have 4! options of combining the stuff, assuming the end result is mostly similar regardless of method. I would add absurd amounts of salt to the list, but since everything has those absurd amounts, you'd still have 24 options for making food.
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Don't forget partially hydrogenated vegetable oil: You can make your pink slime taste just like chocolate!
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American bacon is bad enough even before they slice it to molecular thickness and fry it in cheap crappy oil until it's quite thoroughly burnt.
This will probably blow your mind, but there are actually different places where one can purchase bacon here in the U.S., across varying levels of thickness. My grandmother used to get hers from a local butcher in Philly that cut it twice as thick as the average Oscar Mayer crap you'll find in a chain grocery store. Also, I prefer my bacon chewy, although I admit I am in the minority.
Don't know if you guys only get once choice over there in Europe or what, but there are vast differences in local cuisine a
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I feel for you on the cheese steak front. Born in Philly suburbs, and when I've had to go to other areas of the country... let's just say it's not good. I think the worst was Denver- a slab (about 1/3 inch thick) of ribeye(?), cheese melted over it, sliced raw onions on top, with a cup of pizza sauce on the side. I would have rather nuked Steak-Umms.
Same deal with NY-style pizza. Even Philly can't get it quite right.
I also like my bacon chewy.
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I don't really like the "New York style" pizzas so much. I prefer the authentic Glasgow style pizza (per capita there are more people of Italian descent living in Glasgow than there is in New York, but there's not much in it) which has a really thick and fluffy pizza base almost like a bloody great big ciabatta.
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Anyone who BOILS BACON (nature's perfect food) really shouldn't be providing any culinary advice.
I know you do usually fry it. But there was nothing wrong when boiling it too. Now, I am not sure if it was prepared in such a way that it can be boiled, but it was great anyway.
The sausages and hot chili sauce more so.
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Actually, there is an amazing dish in Okinawa called rafute which is essentially braised pork belly. It's not technically bacon as it isn't smoked, but I reckon it's close enough. You should open your eyes to the wonders of nature's perfect food!
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The idea of boiling liquids on customer tables whilst drinking beer seems like an idea that won't catch on.
Not sure that is new... (Score:5, Interesting)
The amount of efficiency increase might be novel, or the input energy to remove the bubbles might be, but using an "acoustic field" is nothing new in industry. Lots of industrial systems use some form of vibrator to decrease bubble to surface adhesion for increased fluid heating speed and thus, efficiency. They also frequently use such systems to reduce surface foaming, especially in conjunction with vacuum systems to prevent fluid foaming or excess dissolved bubbles / gases.
Re:Not sure that is new... (Score:5, Interesting)
Can't always use microwaves though e.g. liquid is not suitable, or it's not convenient.
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It entirely depends on the dielectric properties of the liquid you're heating, the shape of the vessel, the material it's made from and the wavelength of the microwaves - even water can be difficult to heat in the "right" (or wrong as it would be) circumstances.
Refrigeration evaporator coils? (Score:3, Interesting)
I can't help but think of deliberately running a fancoil unit with an unbalanced fan so it vibrates the evaporator coil.
Or, possibly mounting piezoelectric "shakers" to the evaporator tubes and deliberately manufacturing them to resonate.
Thanks, Hessian, for bringing this up. Anything I can do to increase efficiency in refrigeration is of great interest to me.
There are a lot of unpublished tricks I have come across that significantly increase refrig
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You might check out Rex Research [rexresearch.com] for odd (and usually, but not always, wrong) ideas on heating and cooling (among other things).
There are many, many cranks and perpetual-motion machines on this site. There are also some workable devices mixed in. The former are sometimes entertaining and the latter are often fascinating. The ones which I can't tell if they're brilliant or just cranks are my favorites.
Some relevant bits, (no guarantees, but less flaky than most):
Heat / Cold [section]
Appropriate / Low Technol
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I'll bookmark this one... that's an interesting link!
You are right... every cutting edge technology has its share of cranks - what makes it really bad is quite a few cranks use credentials from respected institutions to lend credibility to their scam.
What'cha think about this one?
http://www.terawatt.com/ [terawatt.com]
Re:Not sure that is new... (Score:5, Funny)
Back in the 70s we used to use loud music to agitate the water in our bongs - it made them much more effective and, like, cosmic!
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Until you blow a speaker....
I kid, I kid. But seriously, don't blow the speakers.
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Lots of industrial systems use some form of vibrator ... for increased ... efficiency.
not just the industrial systems. i can think of one industry that uses various compact vibrators to reach certain goals faster and more efficiently than the standard process. it can also be used to reach those goals in quick succession. though using them for prolonged periods often leads to an eventual overall energy drain resulting in some extended downtime. so it's generally prudent to use them sparingly. it's an energy efficiency issue.
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Lots of industrial systems use some form of vibrator ... for increased ... efficiency.
not just the industrial systems. i can think of one industry that uses various compact vibrators to reach certain goals faster and more efficiently than the standard process. it can also be used to reach those goals in quick succession. though using them for prolonged periods often leads to an eventual overall energy drain resulting in some extended downtime. so it's generally prudent to use them sparingly. it's an energy efficiency issue.
This has to be one of the best double entendre comments I have ever seen.
Its so good I bet there are a lot of people who would only see the straightforward meaning. And for the rest of us, we can't read it with straight face.
Bravo.
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Oooohhhh (Score:3)
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That's it; I'm taking away your pun license.
This is a well known phenomenon (Score:1)
Here's a paper from 2002 trying to quantize the effect in equations:
http://doc.utwente.nl/43791/1/rectified.pdf
A watched pot doesn't boil (Score:5, Funny)
But a heard pot boils real good.
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Nope. Google Images says that it looks similar to The Chain Reaction [imdb.com] (1980, 5.4/10 stars). I think it really wanted to say Chain Reaction [imdb.com] (1996, 5.3/10 stars). I can happily say, I missed both of them. :)
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I did see that movie, and it was the first thing I thought of when I read the headline
Umm - Isn't This Already Well Known? (Score:4, Interesting)
There have been units around for years both for home use cleaning jewelry, etc, and for use in various industrial/manufacturing processes, including being used in electronics manufacturing, where I've seen them used to clean PCBs and other electronic assemblies & parts after they undergo a "dirty" manufacturing step like wave-solder, in order to remove all flux, dirt, and oils.
They used a heated tank of solvent that was agitated by ultrasound transducers to greatly increase cleaning ability and decrease cleaning time. The first time I saw one like that was in the late 1970s. I worked in the government/military-related electronics and aerospace industry.
Strat
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In those units, the ultrasound is used to vibrate the dirt and shake it loose. The ones I know of (used in cleaning medical instruments) operate nowhere near the boiling point of the liquid.
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In those units, the ultrasound is used to vibrate the dirt and shake it loose. The ones I know of (used in cleaning medical instruments) operate nowhere near the boiling point of the liquid.
Actually, you're correct as far as the units you mean, and I was wrong to include the home ultrasonic jewelry cleaners.
The factory units I referred to, however, used boiling solvents. Of course, many solvents boil at lower temperatures than water. Some common solvents I saw used, like trichlorotriflouroethane, boil at quite low temperatures (118F, 47.7C for "Trich").
The effect of the ultrasound on the boiling liquid was startling. With the ultrasound transducer(s) switched off, the solvent boiled in the nor
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Next: Current issue of Stereophile has an article on a record (vinyl LP) cleaning machine that uses ultrasound. The author says it's the best he's heard. Or rather ''not" heard, as there are less contaminants to make tics and pops, and less stuff to gum up the needle.
Doubly strange. I seem to recall seeing ultrasonic record cleaners marketed back in the '80s in these specialty/import electronics catalogs like the ones from DAK Industries that were catalog-based discount electronics importers and direct-sale catalog distributors (the internet killed DAK in '92...but since then has been reborn as DAK 2000).
DAK Industries also won a significant precedent-setting court case against Microsoft over licensing/copyright fee payments owed for the time between bankruptcy filing a
This reminds me... (Score:4, Interesting)
of the acoustic effects on disk arrays (and a Dtrace video that showed shouting having a detrimental effect on drive efficiency).
wouldn't a pressurized vessel (cooker) have the same end result (in that vapor layer formation is prevented or retarded?)
or as someone else mentioned, using microwaves to boil/heat faster?
is the 17% efficiency gain taking into account the energy needed to blast the liquid with Eminem?
the 'article' looks like a fluff piece and the comments say much the same, nothing to see here move along.
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Here's the shouting-at-disks bit ;)
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/01/02/0626201/why-not-to-shout-at-your-disk-array [slashdot.org]
timothy
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There's no mention of kicking them to get a failing disk to spin up... Those come after asking nicely, and threatening. The last one actually works. :)
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Doh, my sub sits a little close to my case. Might be time to move some equipment.
Screeching (Score:3)
I hesitate to ask what it sounds like when you stand next to a boiler being blasted with energetic sound waves.
So this means... (Score:1)
So this means the watched pot only boils if it's listening to some kickin' tunes? Sweet.
Of course (Score:2)
Superfluid Helium (Score:2)
Helium has some strange properties. It has a negative JT coefficient for temperatures above about 50K. This means that when it is compressed it cools down instead of heating up.
One of the most interesting is when it's a liquid it will boil until it gets to a transition temperature where it becomes a superfluid. Here the viscosity and heat transfer coefficient becomes near 0. So all boiling stops because any heat input is transferred to the molecules on the surface and they vaporize.
http://www.youtube.com/wa [youtube.com]
All i saw here (Score:1)
Didn't work for me... (Score:1)
beer anyone? (Score:1)