## Posts Tagged 'Fluid Dynamics'

### Zhukovsky’s Airfoil

A simple transformation with remarkable properties was used by Nikolai Zhukovsky around 1910 to study the flow around aircraft wings. It is defined by

$\displaystyle \omega = \textstyle{\frac{1}{2}}\displaystyle{\left(z +\frac{1}{z}\right)}$

and is usually called the Joukowsky Map. We begin with a discussion of the theory of fluid flow in two dimensions. Readers familiar with 2D potential flow may skip to the section Joukowsky Airfoil.

Visualization of airflow around a Joukowsky airfoil. Image generated using code on this website.

### Using Maths to Reduce Aircraft Noise

If you have ever tried to sleep under a flight-path near an airport, you will know how serious the problem of aircraft noise can be. Aircraft noise is amongst the loudest sounds produced by human activities. The noise is over a broad range of frequencies, extending well beyond the range of hearing. The problem of aviation noise has become more severe as aircraft engines have become more powerful  [TM180 or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com].

Engine inlet of a CFM56-3 turbofan engine on a Boeing 737-400 [image Wikimedia Commons].

### Stokes’s 200th Birthday Anniversary

Next Tuesday, the 30th of August, is the 200th anniversary of the birth of George Gabriel Stokes. This extended blog post is to mark that occasion. See also an article in The Irish Times.

### Spin-off Effects of the Turning Earth

Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis (1792-1843).

On the rotating Earth, a moving object deviates from a straight line, being deflected to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern hemisphere. The deflecting force is named after a nineteenth century French engineer, Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis [TM164 or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com].

Coriolis was interested in the dynamics of machines, such as water mills, with rotating elements. He was not concerned with the turning Earth or the oceans and atmosphere surrounding it. But it is these fluid envelopes of the planet that are most profoundly affected by the Coriolis force.

### A Zero-Order Front

Sharp gradients known as fronts form in the atmosphere when variations in the wind field bring warm and cold air into close proximity. Much of our interesting weather is associated with the fronts that form in extratropical depressions.

Below, we describe a simple mechanistic model of frontogenesis, the process by which fronts are formed.

### Tides: a Tug-of-War between Earth, Moon and Sun

All who set a sail, cast a hook or take a dip have a keen interest in the water level, and the regular ebb and flow of the tides. At most places the tidal variations are semi-diurnal, with high and low water twice each day  [see TM144, or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com].

Animation of tide prediction machine, showing outputs for New York (semi-diurnal tides) and Kuril Islands (diurnal tides) [Source: American Mathematical Society (see below)].

### Stan Ulam, a mathematician who figured how to initiate fusion

Stanislaw Ulam, born in Poland in 1909, was a key member of the remarkable Lvov School of Mathematics, which flourished in that city between the two world wars. Ulam studied mathematics at the Lvov Polytechnic Institute, getting his PhD in 1933. His original research was in abstract mathematics, but he later became interested in a wide range of applications. He once joked that he was “a pure mathematician who had sunk so low that his latest paper actually contained numbers with decimal points” [TM138 or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com].

Operation Castle, Bikini Atoll, 1954