Mathematics is central to all engineering disciplines, including aerospace engineering. After all, it underpins every computation that allows aerospace engineers to better understand physical situations and optimize aircraft designs. Therefore, it is worth dedicating a week to discuss math. The first main topic of this discussion is calculus, which has two central … [Read more...] about The Mathematics of Aerospace Engineering
Unlocking the Secrets of Fluid Mechanics: Oil Film Flow Visualization and More
Fluid mechanics has been notoriously difficult to understand. This is primarily because the fundamental equations that describe fluid flow, the Navier-Stokes equations, can be nearly impossible to solve. In the year 2000, the Clay Mathematics Institute offered $1 million to the first person who could prove the existence of well-behaved solutions to the Navier-Stokes equations … [Read more...] about Unlocking the Secrets of Fluid Mechanics: Oil Film Flow Visualization and More
Airfoils
In this week’s installment, I thought that I would discuss airfoils in more detail. All airplanes have wings, and all wings are shaped according to airfoils. Therefore, understanding airfoils is central in aircraft design. Airfoils can be obtained by taking cross-sections of a wing that are parallel to the fuselage. Therefore, they can provide much information about how air … [Read more...] about Airfoils
Supersonic Commercial Flight: Trials and Tribulations
This week, I thought I would take some time to write about a topic that has interested me since I was in elementary school: supersonic commercial flight. This area of aviation has been plagued with failures and hopes that were never realized. Nevertheless, it has a fascinating history. Let us begin in 1963 when President John F. Kennedy made a speech in which he … [Read more...] about Supersonic Commercial Flight: Trials and Tribulations
High-Speed Flight
Speed is one of the primary benefits of flying, and during the first half of the 20th century, there was a passionate effort to make planes faster. While slow, piston-engine aircraft dominated the 1930s, jet aircraft emerged by the end of World War II, and test pilot Chuck Yaeger ushered in the supersonic era when he broke the sound barrier in 1947. However, the troubled … [Read more...] about High-Speed Flight