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
Tag: streamlines
The Many Shapes of Fish
After visiting an aquarium or snorkeling near a reef, you may have wondered why fish come in so many different shapes. Given that all fish species need to get around Keep reading
Drawing With Microfluidic Tweezers
One of the challenges of dealing with objects at the microscale is finding ways to manipulate them. This is what techniques like optical tweezers or magnetic traps are used for. The Keep reading
Streamlines in Oil
Bernoulli’s principle describes the relationship between pressure and velocity in a fluid: in short, an increase in velocity is accompanied by a drop in pressure and vice versa. This photo Keep reading
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Here’s a potential flow field with heart-shaped streamlines, made just for you. Thank you to everyone for having helped made FYFD such a success over these 700 posts, whether by liking, Keep reading
Using Flow Viz for Optimization
Flow visualization is a powerful design tool for engineers. When Google was interested in determining optimal configurations for their heliostat array, they turned to NASA Ames’ water tunnel facility to Keep reading
Micro Air Vehicle Flow Viz
A smoke wire shows the deformation of streamlines around a swept-winged micro air vehicle (MAV). These crafts typically feature wingspans smaller than one foot and, thus, never develop the type Keep reading
Flow Around Traffic
Flow visualization in a water tunnel shows what the flow around a line of traffic looks like. Note the progressively more turbulent flow around each car as it sits in Keep reading
How Wings Create Lift
One of the topics in fluid dynamics almost everyone has come across is the explanation of how airplanes produce lift. Using Bernoulli’s principle–which relates velocity and pressure–and a picture of Keep reading