Month: March 2009

During my student days, one of the most obviously complicated and beyond-comprehension modules was that on fluid dynamics. It’s not surprising that it was complicated and beyond comprehension, the way fluids (gases and liquids by definition) move is not simple.

There is no single, straightforward equation that can describe the flow of water cascading down waterfall. No clear-cut algorithm can determine exactly how oil will flow in an Alaskan pipeline. Mathematics and science struggle to predict the precise path of hurricanes and tornadoes. And, even tracking a water drop trickling down the back of Jeff Goldblum’s hand is off-limits. And, if you’ve ever tried to explain to a child how a plane becomes airborne and once at altitude doesn’t just fall out of the sky you will know that nothing about fluid mechanics is ever easy.

Of course, there are equations that describe fluid motion and while some of these are incredibly sophisticated they are far from perfect. There are the Bernouilli equations, for instance, which students (and professors) of the physical sciences struggle over to this day.

Understanding how fluids move may seem trivial to the uninitiated if all it were about was predicting which way a water drop will fall. But, my allusion to hurricanes, planes and pipelines hopefully hints at just how important understanding fluid mechanics is. Fluid mechanics is a matter of life or death. A rather prosaic-sounding research paper entitled “Analytical and numerical analysis of the liquid longitudinal sloshing impact on a partially filled tank-vehicle with and without baffles” is testament to this fact.

At first glance, I have to admit I thought it was about improving efficiency at vehicle filling stations, but co-author of the paper Marc Richard of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, at the University Laval, in Québec, Canada, explained that it’s about improving the safety of tanker trucks. The kind of heavy-goods vehicles that weigh several tonnes, and carry highly combustible liquids such as petroleum, volatile and toxic organic solvents, and liquid food stuffs.

Picture the scene, it’s a wet and foggy night, a truck driver pulling a half-load of product from factory to outlet, takes a bend too quickly, swerves to avoid an oncoming vehicle and in the dazzling glare of headlights and spray veers off the road heading for a ditch.

The thousands of litres of liquid sloshing around in the half-filled tank follow all the right equations of fluid mechanics and some of the wrong ones. The combined momentum of those billions upon billions of organic molecules attempt to shove the truck and its tank-trailer one way, while the dwindling friction between wheels and wet road attempt to shove it another.

The inevitable outcome of this fluid reaction is a truck spinning out of control and overturning is it smashes into the ditch. The endpoint will depend on whether the truck was transporting an inflammable, volatile, and toxic load or full-fat cola.

Marc Richard and colleagues Messaoud Toumi and Mohamed Bouazara of the University of Quebec at Chicoutimi, want to inhibit this kind of out of control fluid mechanics. They are investigating the design of in-tank baffles that can smooth the sloshing of the fluid within. Whether a tanker truck goes out of control on a wet and foggy night, when a tire blows, or in a vehicle collision, these baffles will make the motion of the liquid load that much more predictable and perhaps give the driver a split second in which to recover control averting disaster.

At this point it would be easy to wax lyrical about the moral of the tale and persuade students everywhere to persist with their fluid mechanics studies. However, I suspect that no amount of persuading would encourage more than a few to consider hydrostatic pressure, incompressible fluids, and orifice baffles as anything but beyond comprehension.

M. Toumi, M. Bouazara, M.J. Richard (2008). Analytical and numerical analysis of the liquid longitudinal sloshing impact on a partially filled tank-vehicle with and without baffles International Journal of Vehicle Systems Modelling and Testing, 3 (3), 229-249

I’ve made a Google map showing important scientific locations – scientific locations.

Recently, a fellow singer in the Cottenham Big Mouth collective was telling me about a Google map he’d created with all his favourite eateries that do live jazz, sounded groovy man…but although I love food and don’t mind a bit of jazz, I thought Sciencebase readers would prefer something a little more…well…science based. So, I’ve created Scientific Locations.

Scientific locations is a map that will grow steadily to add pins and notes to sites like the Cambridge U’s Cavendish Laboratory, Darwin’s Down House, Chicago Pile #1 and more. In other words, it’s going to show the sites associated with some of the greatest scientific discoveries including the discovery of the electron, the origin of species, and the development of the world’s first artificial nuclear reactor.

I gave the Scientific Locations map a shout out on twitter, hoping not to hear that someone else had already taken on such a monumental task. So far no one has told me that I’m reinventing the wheel, so to speak. If anyone happens to know precisely where the wheel was invented I’ll pin that on the map, of course.

Adrian Kybett ChemTwittChem on Twitter has sent me several pins early in the campaign and the map was growing steadily. Then BadAstronomer, Grace_Baynes, Disco_Dave, BuffaloDavid, Krelnik, IYA_US, mactavish, DiscoveryChPR, and many others began to retweet the link bringing in many more suggestions from Ytterby to Derbyshire and beyond.

The official Google Lunar X PRIZE Twitter account also gave me a shout out and pointed to a related collaborative map. Ricardo Vidal also pointed me to a map showing all the labs taking part in Open WetWare

If you have any ideas for scientific locations, please leave a comment here, send me an email, or tweet me. I’ll add a credit (by way of your twitter link or web site) to the map pin for original ideas.

Algebra, alchemy, alcohol, aldebaran, alkali, Alhambra, algorithm, Algarve, and, of course, albatross.

One thing in common…they’re all “al” words, and what is “al” you ask? It’s simply the Arabic definite article, it’s the “the”, in other words. Which means that all those words have “the” in their etymology.

So, when Sir Isaac Newton was referred to as an Alchemist, it didn’t necessarily mean he was searching for the philosopher’s stone or weaving the philosopher’s wool to convert base metal into gold or create an elixir of youth, he was merely studying “the” chemistry. There was no real distinction at the time, although he did partake of some odd practices nevertheless…allegedly.

The BBC recently broadcast an excellent series on Science and Islam showing how those “al” words underpin much of modern science. It was narrated by physicist Jim Al Khalili of the University of Surrey, given his name, his enthusiasms, and his science, how could it not be?

In case you are wondering, Al Khalil loosely means The Friend of God, the “i” at the end makes it possessive, so more accurately, it is “My Friend of God”.