Tag: kayaking

Paddling Pathlines
Rainbow lines cut through the darkness in photographer Stephen Orlando’s images of a kayak in motion. Equipped with an LED-lined paddle, Olympic kayaker Adam van Koeverden paddled along the waterfront while Orlando took long exposure photographs. The kayak’s motion makes it effectively invisible, while the paddle’s lights trace out the path of each stroke taken. Scientists also use this kind of technique to follow the path of an object in a flow. In fluid dynamics, we call these remnants of an object’s trajectory a pathline. (Image credit: S. Orlando)
March 17, 2023
Tokyo 2020: Kasai Canoe Slalom Course
The Kasai Canoe Slalom Course is Japan’s first man-made whitewater venue. To test the design and its multiple configurations, engineers at CTU in Prague built this large-scale hydraulic model. Check out the video below to see it under construction and in action.

The course is adaptable so that it can be used for high-level competitions like the Olympics, then reconfigured for recreational use. You can even see what it’s like to run part of the course in a multi-person raft, thanks to a miniature, GoPro-equipped boat! (Image credit: top – M. Trizuliak, others – CTU Prague; video credit: CTU Prague)
Missed our previous Olympics coverage? Check out how sailboats outrace the wind, the future of swim tech, and how surface roughness affects volleyball aerodynamics.
August 5, 2021
Fluids Round-up – 21 September 2013
First off, I’d like to give a special shout-out to FYFD’s friends at Pointwise, who were kind enough to invite me for a visit this week. For any readers looking for CFD grid-generation software, check them out; they are a fantastic bunch and very good at what they do.
My thanks again to everyone who donated this week to help get me to the APS conference. The campaign is still open if anyone wants to get in on the FYFD wallpapers and stickers on offer to donors. As a reminder, any funds beyond conference costs will go toward improving FYFD, including getting equipment to make FYFD videos. On to the fluids round-up!
- Wired takes us behind the scenes of the creation of Games of Thrones’ dragons. Believe it or not, the VFX team actually did digital simulations of the dragons flying in a wind tunnel.
- Nature dissects whether a submarine at relativistic speeds sinks or floats. (via io9) Note that Nature article says the submarine is in water but the original paper simply says that the submarine is immersed in a fluid and makes no account for the compressibility (or lack thereof) of that fluid.
- Add some excitement to your day with liquid-nitrogen-induced explosions from Distort (via io9).
- Flow Viz shows off a great picture of condensation-induced flow visualization on an airplane wing.
- Check out this awesome video of vibrating lycopodium powder from Susi Sie. (via io9)
- National Geographic considers whether Hawaii’s molasses spill is more or less environmentally damaging than an oil spill.
- Finally, our lead image shows a natural visualization of flow around a kayaker. The foam atop the water forms when air and water mix with the gas produced by decomposing leaves. The photo by Lucas Gilman appeared in Outside Magazine earlier this summer. (via Flow Visualization)
(Photo credit: L. Gilman)
September 21, 2013