Cambridge Core BlogUnraveling the Barn Owl’s Stealthy Flight
A recent study in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics has tried to understand and model the role of porosity present in the birds' wing on the combined aerodynamic and acoustic performance.
Fluids Writing Competition – now open!
Are you passionate about fluid mechanics and its applications? Are you looking to develop your writing skills and engage with an audience that's just as enthusiastic on the subject as you are? We have the competition for you.
Mahony Neumann Room Prize 2020
About the Mahony Neumann Room Prize This prize, for outstanding contributions to the Australian Mathematical Society’s research publications, is fittingly named after the founding editors of those journals.…
Approximate solutions to one-phase Stefan-like problems with space-dependent latent heat
Stefan problems are a special type of partial differential boundary value problems, introduced around 1890 by the Slovenian physicist Josef Stefan [1].…
Watch: Ventilation and COVID-19
Experiments visualising the airflow when breathing, speaking and laughing, show that wearing a mask indoors can drastically reduce the risk of transmission of airborne particles.…
Watch: How do Sperm Swim?
The tail (flagellum) of the sperm does not simply push the body, but uses a rhythmical beating with pushing and fraying over a 4-beat pattern, as demonstrated in the video.…
Watch: How do Birds Fly in Strong Winds?
When navigating strong crosswinds birds adjust the angle of their body into the wind, whilst keeping their head fixed on the target destination, in order to maintain forwards motion.…
Watch: Underwater Robots based on the Loch Ness Monster
Current underwater vehicles are either difficult to manoeuvre making them unsuitable for sensitive work, or are extremely expensive. Gabe Weymouth and his team at the University of Southampton are designing new underwater robots based on the Plesiosaur – the dinosaur behind the legend of the Loch Ness Monster – which are much smaller, cheaper and more energy efficient.…
Watch: Simulations of Mixing Fluids
From rotating impellers stirring air into a liquid, to a turbulent jet entering a moving flow, mixing processes are essential to almost every industrial application you can think of.…
Watch: How do Cloaking Devices Work?
When an object, such as an aircraft or submarine, moves through a fluid it generates a ‘wake’ behind it which can be used by monitoring tools to detect its size and position.…
Watch: How Do Snakes Catch Their Prey Underwater?
When catching prey underwater snakes use two main techniques: the frontal strike and the lateral strike. By studying real snakes in the lab at ESPCI/MNHN, Marion Segall was able to recreate the setup using a 3D-printed snake head and laser visualisation techniques, which allowed for the forces involved in each strike to be measured.…
Machines Learning Control
A new study in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics by an international team of scientists is on the cutting edge of research.