Flight testing models has a long history in aerodynamics. Above you see a Curtiss JN-4 biplane in flight with a model wing suspended below the fuselage. This test was conducted Keep reading
Tag: experimental fluid dynamics
“It’s All About Flow”
Fluid dynamicists, like other scientists, have lives and interests well beyond our research. Ivo Nedyalkov, for example, is a professional rapper in addition to a PhD-level fluid dynamicist. In “It’s Keep reading
Inside the Fire Lab
Fire plays an important role in nature, one with which humanity must live without controlling fully. After several disastrous historic wildfires in the American West, the U.S. Forest Service established Keep reading
Robotic Research Facilities
One of the major challenges in fluid dynamics is the size of the parameter spaces we have to explore. Because many problems in fluid dynamics are non-linear, making small changes Keep reading
Flow on Commercial Wings
Even in an era of supercomputers, there is a place for quick and dirty methods of flow visualization. Here we see a model of a swept wing like those seen on Keep reading
Driving Instabilities with a Twist
Imagine that you want to study how two fluids mix when a lighter fluid is pushed into a denser one. Conceptually, it’s a straightforward situation. It would be like having a Keep reading
Calimero’s Uprising!
Here on FYFD posts often focus on research results, with animations and images showing only a tiny portion of the apparatus necessary to conduct that work. But in this timelapse, Keep reading
Astrophysical Turbulence
Subsonic turbulence – like the random and chaotic motions of air and water in our everyday lives – is something we have only a limited understanding of. Our knowledge of Keep reading
Mimicking Hurricanes
Hurricanes are a frequent and potentially deadly occurrence for many parts of the world. Although forecasting models have improved, there is still a lot about the physics of these storms Keep reading
Mixing Fresh and Salty
Earth’s oceans are a complex and dynamic environment, but fortunately, we can simulate some of their physics on a smaller scale in the laboratory. The time series of images above Keep reading