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
An Introduction to Flight
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
Why Fly?
With aircraft being as popular as they are, and with governments and private corporations dedicating millions of dollars every year to aviation development, it is worth asking: Why fly? An informative study to help answer this question is “What Price Speed?” a research paper written by the aerodynamicists Theodore von Kármán and Giuseppe Gabrielli in 1950. In their paper, … [Read more...] about Why Fly?