Currently viewing the tag: "drag"

How Quickly Do Bubbles Rise in a Pint of Beer?

On November 15, 2016 · In Aerodynamics, Case Studies, Engineering

The material we covered in the last two posts (skin friction and pressure drag) allows us to consider a fun little problem:

How quickly do the small bubbles of gas rise in a pint of beer?

To answer this question we will use the concept of aerodynamic drag introduced in the last […]

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Boundary Layer Separation and Pressure Drag

On October 15, 2016 · In Aerodynamics, Bio-mimicry, Engineering

At the start of the 19th century, after studying the highly cambered thin wings of many different birds, Sir George Cayley designed and built the first modern aerofoil, later used on a hand-launched glider. This biomimetic, highly cambered and thin-walled design remained the predominant aerofoil shape for almost 100 years, mainly due to the fact that […]

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On Boundary Layers: Laminar, Turbulent and Skin Friction

On September 18, 2016 · In Aerodynamics, General Aerospace

In the early 20th century, a group of German scientists led by Ludwig Prandtl at the University of Göttingen began studying the fundamental nature of fluid flow and subsequently laid the foundations for modern aerodynamics. In 1904, just a year after the first flight by the Wright brothers, Prandtl published the first paper on a […]

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