Jack, Ryan, and Sally are piloting a small research vessel on a remote river. While distracted by news of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover (successful landing!), their vessel crashes and begins capsizing. After their initial panic, they are dismayed to find the collision has taken out their communications equipment.
In some quick thinking, Jack finds a printed log of ships expected to be nearby. Fortunately, there is a marine zoology expedition about a mile downriver, and our crew just needs to get an SOS out to that ship.
Initially, Jack tries simply yelling for help. Unfortunately, this doesn't do much good - and the explanation why requires some fluid mechanics.
When I was in high school (four decades ago!) I had an awesome physics teacher in my junior year, Mr. Kindred. His class was a key influence in my decision to pursue a career in mechanical engineering. I recall Mr. Kindred discussing the future of fusion power and commenting, as was common at that time, that "fusion power is 20 years away". Well, h...
Non-Newtonian fluids are something almost every elementary school student is familiar with. Mixing cornstarch and water to create a liquid that acts as a solid is an experiment which has captured the attention of children (and adults) for generations. The Discovery Channel show Mythbusters even showed Adam Savage walking across a tub of cornstarch ...
COVID-19 has impacted us all in some way or another. This has forced most all of us to change how we do things – including our jobs. More than ever before, we have needed the Cloud. Despite my best efforts to avoid it, I caught the COVID-19 virus in late November. I was working from home at the time, as were most of the AFT staff. The Cloud enabled...
In this blog, we dive further into pump and system curves for complex systems. The examples include demonstrating system curves changing over time and when multiple system curves exist for a single system with multiple pumps in different locations of the system. Let us re-visit the multi-branched system example from the previo...
Flow going backwards through a pump? Then the pump starts rotating in reverse? Where the heck is the check valve to stop the flow? These are all great questions (which I will answer later in this article). Theodore von Kármán and Robert Knapp were working on these questions in the early 1930's. Most engineering students encounter von Kármán in thei...
As the original developer of AFT Arrow, I consider it as one of my babies. This month it is all grown up and now 25 years old. Back in March we came out with the latest new version AFT Arrow 8 – just as the COVID-19 crisis was emerging. Those who have taken an AFT Arrow seminar which I have taught (at least fifty classes and counting!) have likely ...
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