Engineering is a strange profession in many ways. One area of strangeness is what we can legally call ourselves. Or not. In medicine, law, or accounting, you cannot practice the profession without a license. And that typically involves passing an exam. It may be difficult to accomplish, but the process is straightforward. In engineering things are ...
Eductors, also known as jet pumps, are a clever way to pump a liquid without any rotating equipment, motors, shafts, or electricity using only the momentum from a supply fluid. However, these interesting pumps can quickly become confusing especially when trying to define them in AFT Fathom. In this blog we will explore exactly how eductors work and...
Whew! That was a lot of hard work! As of Monday, April 12, 2021, AFT xStream™ is loaded up and ready to go. And to help you simulate things you have only guessed at before. When we engaged Fred Moody a few years ago to teach a short course at AFT that covered compressible gas and steam transients, we were not certain a commercial quality product co...
Have you ever been working on an interesting project where you get into the zone by picking up so much momentum in the work you are doing? But then, all of a sudden you hit a brick wall in your progress and cannot help but feel the pain of all that momentum coming to a screeching halt? You are not alone, in fact, fluids experience something ve...
All of a sudden it seems that everyone is talking about hydrogen - that wonderful, light-weight gas or liquid (see the Apollo mission Saturn rocket and Space Shuttle) which has the unfortunate tendency to explode (see Hindenburg). In my first engineering job, I was fortunate to work with both gaseous hydrogen as well as cryogenic liquid hydrogen. A...
Jack, Ryan, and Sally are piloting a small research vessel on a remote river. While distracted by news of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover (successful landing!), their vessel crashes and begins capsizing. After their initial panic, they are dismayed to find the collision has taken out their communications equipment.
In some quick thinking, Jack finds a printed log of ships expected to be nearby. Fortunately, there is a marine zoology expedition about a mile downriver, and our crew just needs to get an SOS out to that ship.
Initially, Jack tries simply yelling for help. Unfortunately, this doesn't do much good - and the explanation why requires some fluid mechanics.
When I was in high school (four decades ago!) I had an awesome physics teacher in my junior year, Mr. Kindred. His class was a key influence in my decision to pursue a career in mechanical engineering. I recall Mr. Kindred discussing the future of fusion power and commenting, as was common at that time, that "fusion power is 20 years away". Well, h...
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