The most dangerous and destructive part of a tropical cyclone isn’t the wind or rain; it’s the storm surge of water moving inland. This landward shift of ocean takes place Keep reading
Tag: engineering
Insect-Inspired Flight
Insects are incredibly agile and resilient fliers, capable of colliding and recovering without damage. Engineers are only beginning to capture these characteristics in their robots. Here, engineers use a soft Keep reading
Coastal Erosion
The same dynamic forces that make coastlines fascinating create perennial headaches for engineers trying to maintain coastlines against erosion. This Practical Engineering video discusses some of the challenges of coastal Keep reading
Snowflake Velocimetry
In our era of remote learning, students don’t always have a chance to do hands-on lab experiments in the usual fashion. But that doesn’t mean they can’t explore important flow Keep reading
Permeable Pavement
Controlling storm water is a major challenge in urban environments, where many surfaces are impermeable. In a city, rain cannot simply soak into the ground and filter into the water Keep reading
Oil in Water
In the decade since the Deepwater Horizons oil spill, scientists have been working hard to understand the intricacies of how liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons behave underwater. The high pressures, low Keep reading
Streamlining Circa 1936
This 1936 promotional film by Chevrolet explains the concept of streamlining objects to reduce their drag. And it actually does a pretty nice job of it, including some wind tunnel Keep reading
Sensing Obstacles Through Flow
Mosquitoes, bats, and even eels use non-visual means to sense their environments. For mosquitoes, part of their obstacle avoidance comes from the exquisite sensitivity of their antennae, which are able Keep reading
Preventing Flooding
The Dutch have been exceptional water engineers for centuries, a necessity in a country where more than a quarter of its territory lies below sea level. After a devastating flood Keep reading
How Canal Locks Work
For thousands of years, boats have been a critical component of trade, efficiently enabling transport of goods over large distances. But water’s self-leveling creates challenges when moving up and downstream Keep reading