Opposition to movement is a multi-fold process. The surfaces of encounter between the swimmer and the fluid provide resistance to efficient motion. Energy is sucked off as fluids change from laminar to turbulent flow. Flow may also become diverted inward creating rotations called vortices that project downstream from the swimmer.
Drag depends on inertia (the tendency to stay put). Inertia is proportional to mass. Fluid density or mass per unit volume is the important factor for our discussion.
Drag comes in two important varieties. Form drag is determined by shape. Friction drag is determined by the nature of the surface. Friction is discussed in terms of viscosity or how readily one layer slips past another.
An important concept in the study of aerodynamics conce
With total drag being the consequence of a combination of shape and friction components, swimmers are limited to various degree by size and speed. Large and small swimmers experience very difference dynamic environments in the same fluid. Whereas a dolphin might seemingly slip through the water, a microscopic organism appears to be slogging through syrup.
Measured flows traveling over the top of a lifting airfoil do move faster than those going underneath. But they travel much faster than the speed required to have the molecules meet up at the back end. Two molecules near each other at the leading edge will not end up next to each other at the trailing edge. Why should they? Molecules have no "knowledge" of their neighbors - they're inanimate. In fact, molecules are in constant
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