If you've ever used a urinal, chances are good you've encountered one of the major flaws in the design: splashback. That is to say, when your own urine hits the wall of the device and splashes back onto your clothes. This is a perennial issue that crops up from time to time with little to no real solution on the horizon—until now, that is.

A group of researchers, including Utah State University professor Tadd T. Truscott, gave a presentation at the 68th Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics on Nov. 24 that proposes a new kind of urinal insert that the group refers to as "a urine black hole." As in, the urine goes in but it doesn't come out.

Here's how part of the abstract for their presentation reads:

Since the mid-nineteenth century, both enlisted and fashion-conscious owners of khaki trousers have been plagued by undesired speckle patterns resulting from splash-back while urinating. ...we search for the ideal urine black hole by performing experiments of simulated urine streams (water droplet streams) impacting macroscopic pillar arrays with varying parameters including pillar height and spacing, draining and material properties. We propose improved urinal insert designs based on our experimental data in hopes of reducing potential embarrassment inherent in wearing khakis.

If this sounds like something humanity should have probably fixed years ago, that's because we as a species have tried several times. There are a number of different urinal insert designs specifically intended to prevent the annoying splashback scenario, but the folks at Splash Lab (the fluid dynamics group behind the presentation) find them to be ineffective at best and actively worse at, well, their worst.

Absorbent cloth-based inserts can become saturated, making the splashback problem more troublesome, and other designs end up just creating a pool for any incoming streams to splash in. Of course, proper technique can alleviate a lot of this, but there's only so much one can do on their own. The presentation specifically suggests a design based on a moss with pillar arrays, allowing it to drain the urine without splashing elsewhere. Our long national nightmare could soon be over.

Source: Improbable Research
Via: Gizmodo

Photo: Mike Mozart | Flickr