Aerodynamics, Fall 2002

Abstract:: This course extends fluid mechanic concepts from Unified Engineering to the aerodynamic performance of wings and bodies in sub/supersonic regimes. It generally has four components: subsonic potential flows, including source/vortex panel methods; viscous flows, including laminar and turbulent boundary layers; aerodynamics of airfoils and wings, including thin airfoil theory, lifting line theory, and panel method/interacting boundary layer methods; and supersonic and hypersonic airfoil theory. Course material varies each year depending upon the focus of the design problem.

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Invertebrate 'LocOlympics': Investigation and Inquiry into Invertebrate Locomotion and Biomechanics

Abstract:: Studies of invertebrate locomotion and biomechanics provide unusual opportunities to interrelate biology, physics, and math in engaging ways. The authors have produced an original videotape and CD, entitled, "Invertebrate LocOlympics," which document locomotion in numerous invertebrates including: nematode, oligochaetes, leech, Daphnia, ostracod, copepod, centipede, millipede, and springtail. This documentation, together with the following write-up, allow quantitative investigation and analysis of several types of locomotion, namely: undulatory swimming, swimming with appendages, walking, running, jumping, ciliary gliding, and others. Direct measurements from freeze-frame video or PowerPoint file images (on CD) allow inter-species comparisons of movement trajectory, forward velocity, wave velocity, wave frequency, and Reynolds Numbers.

Abstract:: The goal of 3.044 is to teach cost-effective and sustainable production of solid material with a desired geometry, structure or distribution of structures, and production volume. Toward this end, it is organized around different types of phase transformations which determine the structure in various processes for making materials, in roughly increasing order of entropy change during those transformations: solid heat treatment, liquid-solid processing, fluid behavior, deformation processing, and vapor-solid processing. The course ends with several lectures that place the subject in the context of society at large.

Abstract:: This collection of three essays was developed from the author's experience teaching the course Fluid Dynamics of the Atmosphere and Ocean, offered to graduate students entering the MIT/WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography. The essays are: 1. Dimensional Analysis of Models and Data Sets: Similarity Solutions and Scaling Analysis,2. A Coriolis Tutorial, and3. Lagrangian and Eulerian Representations of Fluid Flow: Kinematics and the Equations of Motion The goal of this resource is to help each student master the concepts and mathematical tools that make up the foundation of classical and geophysical fluid dynamics. These essays treat these topics in considerably greater depth than a comprehensive fluids textbook can afford, and they are accompanied by data files (MATLAB® and Fortan) that allows some application and experimentation. They should be suitable for self study.