aerodynamics

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. As with every World Cup, at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar the players will be using a new ball. The last thing competitors want is for the most important piece of equipment in the most important tournament in the world’s most popular sport to behave in unexpected ways, so a lot of work goes into making sure that every new World Cup ball feels familiar to players. I am a physics professor at the …

Despite being an excellent source of renewable energy, wind turbines, like most manufactured products, eventually need to be disposed of, for one reason or another. That poses an obviously large problem given their size, but researchers at Michigan State University are working on a novel solution: a newly developed material for making turbines that can be later recycled into everything from car parts to gummy bears.The same arguments for upgrading your smartphone every year, such as improving its performanceor replacing…

Stargazer will travel Mach 9 and reach an altitude of over 32 miles (51 kilometers)Gif: Venus AerospaceEarlier this week, Venus Aerospace, a Houston-based aeronautics startup, released renderings for Stargazer—an incredibly fast high-altitude vehicle it’s hoping to develop. Venus Aerospace has been working on the hypersonic aircraft since 2020, according to a company press release, and it has raised $33 million to build the plane, of which $1 million came from government funding. Hypersonic refers to vehicles or missiles…

Research sheds light on the flight of magnificent ancient creatures. Credit: Chihiro KinoshitaWhat the new <span class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Jurassic</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>The Jurassic (from the Jura Mountains) is a geologic period and system that spanned 56 million years from the end of the Triassic Period 201.3 million years ago to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period 145 million years ago. It…

Credit: Rice University The complex aerodynamics around a moving car and its tires are hard to see, but not for some mechanical engineers. Specialists in fluid dynamics at Rice University and Waseda University in Tokyo have developed their computer simulation methods to the point where it's possible…