Bending of Spaghetti Beams and Columns Exposed to Hot Steam Reveals Several Physical Properties of the Spaghetti

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that observing spaghetti beams and columns exposed to hot steam can reveal their physical properties, such as Young's modulus and water diffusion characteristics, through real-time image analysis.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel method using hot steam exposure and image processing to estimate Young's modulus and water diffusion coefficients in spaghetti.

Findings

Water diffusion coefficient matches previous experimental data.

Real-time image analysis effectively estimates Young's modulus.

Bending behavior follows a logistic-like evolution.

Abstract

In this paper, we show that bending of spaghetti beams and columns exposed to hot steam reveals the time evolution of young modulus, the diffusion coefficient of water molecules penetrating the spaghetti, the partial Fickian behavior of water diffusion, and a logistic-like evolution of column bending angle. The bending geometries were timely recorded and the Young moduli were obtained by processing the images. We applied two equations proposed by us previously, one equation was applied for beam bending and the other for column bending, to estimate the Young moduli. The experiment was conducted by exposing the freely-hung cantilever spaghetti beams and columns using hot steam from boiling water so that the images were recorded in realtime while the beam or column bent undisturbedly. Surprisingly, the estimated diffusion coefficient of water molecules matched well the experimental data reported by others. This method may become an alternative for estimating the diffusion coefficient of vapor molecules penetrating the materials.