On February 14th join Professor Srinivasan Chandrasekar.

Professor Srinivasan Chandrasekar of Purdue University will speak about Prince Rupert’s Drops: 400- year-old Mystery Revealed. Prince Rupert’s drops, special “glass bubbles”, possessing very striking mechanical properties, have been in existence since before 1625. Forerunners of modern toughened glasses, they exhibit a paradoxical combination of strength and fragility that excited the imagination of natural philosophers of yore. The head of a drop does not break when hammered on an anvil: yet when its tail is broken with mild finger pressure applied, the drop disintegrates explosively into fine powder. We unravel this curious behavior using high speed photography, fractography and stress measurements, thereby providing the solution to a 400-year old conundrum.

Srinivasan Chandrasekar is Professor in the Schools of Industrial Engineering and Materials Engineering at Purdue University. His research and teaching interests are in manufacturing, materials processing, fracture and tribology. His recent contributions all stem from the use of high-speed imaging techniques to characterize material flow and fracture phenomena at high spatial and temporal resolution. “Prince Rupert’s Drops” exemplifies this approach.