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Some of the differences between beach volleyball and indoor volleyball are obvious, like the number of players allowed -- two versus six -- and the courts -- a smaller sand court versus a bigger indoor court. But there are subtle and significant differences in the balls themselves. (Image credits: I. Garifullin, C. Chaurasia, C. Oskay, and M. Teirlinck) For more ongoing and past Olympic coverage, click here. Read the full article
Spin, or the lack thereof, plays a major role in many sports -- including tennis, golf, football, baseball, volleyball, and table tennis -- because it affects whether flow stays attached around a ball, as well as how much lift or side force a ball gets. A ball's spin doesn't stay constant, however. (Image credit: J. Calabrese; research credit: T. Allen et al.) Find all of our Olympics coverage -- past and ongoing -- here and every sports post here. Read the full article
In a typical wind farm, each wind turbine aligns itself to the local wind direction. In an ideal world where every turbine was completely independent, this would maximize the power produced. But with changing wind directions and many turbines, it's inevitable that upstream wind turbines will interfere with the flow their downstream neighbors see. (Image credit: N. Doherty; research credit: M. Howland et al.; via Boston Globe; submitted by Larry S.) Read the full article
The ekranoplan was a massive, Soviet-era aircraft that relied on ground effect to stay aloft. In this video, RC pilots test out their own homemade version of the craft, including some neat flow visualization of the wingtip vortices. (Video and image credit: rctestflight; submitted by Simplicator) Read the full article
Flying fish and diving birds often navigate the interface between water and air in their flight, but few studies have actually looked at the effects of this transition on lift. (Image credit: fish - J. Cobb, wing - W. Weisler et al.; research credit: W. Weisler et al.) Read the full article
For a long time, people thought baseball aerodynamics were simply a competition between gravity and the Magnus effect caused when a ball is spinning. But the seams of a baseball are so prominent that they, too, have a role to play. (Image credit: top - Pixabay, others - B. Smith; research credit: B. Smith; see also Baseball Aerodynamics) Today wraps up our Olympic coverage, but if you missed our earlier posts, you can find them all here. Read the full article
It's a bit mindboggling, but by exploiting physics and geometry, a sailboat can reach speeds faster than the wind propelling it. Steve Mould demonstrates how in this video using some cool tabletop set-ups. (Image and video credit: S. Mould) Missed some of our earlier Olympics coverage? Check out how to optimize oar lengths for rowing, volleyball aerodynamics, and the ideas behind future swim technologies. Read the full article
Golf returned to the Olympics in 2016 in Rio and is back for the Tokyo edition. Golf balls -- with their turbulence-promoting dimples -- are a perennial favorite for aerodynamics explanations because, counterintuitively, a dimpled golf ball flies farther than a smooth one. But today we're going to focus on a different aspect of golf aerodynamics, namely, what happens when a golf ball is spinning. (Image credit: top - M. Spiske, others - N. Sakib and B. Smith; research credit: N. Sakib and B. Smith, pdf) We're celebrating the Olympics with sports-themed fluid dynamics. Learn how surface roughness affects a volleyball serve, see the wingtip vortices of sail boats, and find out how to optimize rowing oars. And don't forget to come back next week for more! Read the full article
Like footballs and baseballs, the trajectory of a volleyball is strongly influenced by aerodynamics. When spinning, the ball experiences a difference in pressure on either side, which causes it to swerve, per the Magnus effect. But volleyball also has the float serve, which like the knuckleball in baseball, uses no spin. (Image credit: game - Pixabay, volleyballs - U. Tsukuba; research credit: S. Hong et al., T. Asai et al.; via Ars Technica) Stick around all this week and next for more Olympic-themed fluid physics! Read the full article
Years ago as I sat on a plane taxiing at Heathrow, I caught a glimpse of a Concorde out on the tarmac. My classmates couldn't understand why I was so excited to see that funny looking plane, but even as a high schooler, I was fascinated by the prospect of flying faster than sound.Unfortunately, there are a lot of challenges to overcome in making supersonic flight widely available -- fuel efficiency, cost effectiveness, and sonic boom control, to name a few. (Video and image credit: TED-Ed) Read the full article
