an engineer’s workbench for scientific computing, fluid mechanics and mathematical physics
The last few weeks, I have been engrossed with the oceans and navigation in their vast expanse. It all started with a couple of movies I watched. The first movie “Kon-Tiki” beautifully portrays the 1947 expedition by Norwegian explorer and ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl across the south pacific, from Peru to polynesia. The remarkable thing was that … Read more An invitation to fluid dynamics from the oceans
Previous article: 1. Fourier transform for confused engineers What is the Fourier transform, really? For some, it is the magic of seeing everything as waves. For others, it is like holding a prism in a beam of sunlight and seeing what it contains, a rainbow of colors. For some others, it is a tool to … Read more What is the Fourier transform?
If you are an engineer, you most likely encountered one of the following situations: Plot the power spectral density of a signal you have Find the dominant frequency/mode in a signal A journal paper stating, “It is obvious(?!) that this operation is straightforward to carry out in wave space”. I have been in many such … Read more Fourier transform for confused engineers
Falkner – Skan equation is a third order non-linear ordinary differential equation which arises in the laminar boundary layer flow past wedge-like objects. (More details here). The equation reads, where m is a constant representing the pressure gradient parameter. Our objective is to solve this differential equation for , for a given value of m … Read more Numerical Solution of the Falkner – Skan Equation
“Give me some example for waves in nature! ” “Sound is a wave.. Light is a wave.. Of course we see water waves.. ” Thats the usual answer we think about when asked that question. Moreover, we are told that sound waves are longitudinal waves (compression waves) and light waves are transverse waves. But we … Read more Why are sound waves longitudinal?