We discuss a new technology that promises large inexpensive mirrors. We argue that it should be possible to tilt a rotating viscous liquid by perhaps as much as a few tens of degrees. The tilted liquid parabolic surface is used as the support for a thin reflecting metallic film. We demonstrate two critical steps: that a viscous liquid mirror can be tilted and that an optical quality metallic fi...

A volume of fluid multiphase flowmodel was used to investigate the effective area and the created liquid film in the structured packings. The computational results revealed that the gas and liquid flow rates play significant roles in the effective interfacial area of the packing. In particular, the effective area increases as the flow rates of both phases increase. Numerical results were compar...

As known from thermodynamic principles, the surface tension of a liquid decreases with increasing temperature. This property can be used to force a liquid film to climb a vertical substrate whose lower end is held warmer than the top. The vertical gradient in surface tension generates a surface shear stress that causes the liquid film to spread upward spontaneously in the direction of higher su...