Mechanics of removing water from the ear canal: Rayleigh-Taylor instability

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dc.contributor.authorKim, Seunghoen
dc.contributor.authorBaskota, Anujen
dc.contributor.authorKang, Hosungen
dc.contributor.authorJung, Sunghwanen
dc.date.accessioned2023-06-29T15:15:10Zen
dc.date.available2023-06-29T15:15:10Zen
dc.date.issued2023-05en
dc.description.abstractWater stuck in the ear is a common problem during showering, swimming or other water activities. Having water trapped in the ear canal for a long time can lead to ear infections and possibly result in hearing loss. A common strategy for emptying water from the ear canal is to shake the head, where high acceleration helps remove the water. In this present study, we rationalize the underlying mechanism of water ejection/removal from the ear canal by performing experiments and developing a stability theory. From the experiments, we measure the critical acceleration to remove the trapped water inside different sizes of canals. Our theoretical model, modified from the Rayleigh-Taylor instability, can explain the critical acceleration observed in experiments, which strongly depends on the radius of the ear canal. The resulting critical acceleration tends to increase, especially in smaller ear canals, which indicates that shaking heads for water removal can be more laborious and potentially threatening to children due to their small size of the ear canal compared with adults.en
dc.description.notesThis work was partially supported by the National Science Foundation (grant no. CMMI-2042740 and no. CBET-2002714) and by the National Research Foundation of Korea (grant no. 2022R1F1A1076192 and no. 2020R1A5A8018822) via PNU EPIC.en
dc.description.sponsorshipNational Science Foundation [CMMI-2042740, CBET-2002714]; National Research Foundation of Korea [2022R1F1A1076192, 2020R1A5A8018822]en
dc.description.versionPublished versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1017/jfm.2023.309en
dc.identifier.eissn1469-7645en
dc.identifier.issn0022-1120en
dc.identifier.otherA12en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10919/115582en
dc.identifier.volume963en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherCambridge University Pressen
dc.rightsCreative Commons Attribution 4.0 Internationalen
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/en
dc.subjectparametric instabilityen
dc.subjectcapillary flowsen
dc.subjectbreakup/coalescenceen
dc.titleMechanics of removing water from the ear canal: Rayleigh-Taylor instabilityen
dc.title.serialJournal of Fluid Mechanicsen
dc.typeArticle - Refereeden
dc.type.dcmitypeTexten

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Scholarly Works, Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics