Latest Posts
Non-Newtonian Fluids: The Pouring Ketchup Quandary
If you enjoy ketchup with your food, there’s a good chance you’ve experienced what we’ll call here the all-or-nothing ketchup quandary. You know, that moment when you reach for a new glass bottle of ketchup, remove the cap, and turn the bottle practically upside down — and then nothing happens. Intuitively, you shake or tap the bottle, and then suddenly your food is completely coated in ketchup (unless your reflexes are really good, of course). In this blog post, we […]
The Graphene Revolution: Part 3
Everyone’s talking about graphene right now. When was the last time a material received this much attention? Sure, other materials have peaked our interest before, but when something breaks into more mainstream news you know it’s going to be a very big deal.
Barrel Hinge Analysis
We’ve all encountered hinges before; they are frequently used to connect different parts of mechanical assemblies in a way that allows them to move freely relative to one another, in a single degree of freedom. There are several different types of hinges, including everything from barrel hinges to friction hinges, with lots in between. Before incorporating a hinge into a mechanical assembly, you might want to get a sense of how it will hold up by performing a hinge analysis.
Discrete Fracture in Rocks
Have you ever noticed how water can flow through rocks and leave a trace of its passage by covering the surface with a patina, like white stripes? The whole process is quite complex but can roughly be explained by breaking it down into two coupled effects: gravity and chemical reactions. Gravity causes the water to infiltrate through discrete fractures (hard rocks) or pores (sedimentary rocks), until it charges the groundwater supply below to a point where excess water will surface […]
Structural Analysis with Thin Elastic Layers
Some structural applications involve thin or high aspect ratio structures sandwiched between other relatively low aspect ratio structures. For example, if a piezoelectric transducer is glued on the surface of a mechanical system, the thickness of the adhesive layer is very small in comparison to the two structures it glues together. Numerical modeling of such a thin layer in two or three dimensions requires resolving it with an appropriate finite element mesh. This can result in a large concentration of […]
Computing the Inductance of a Straight Wire
A question that comes up occasionally is whether or not you can compute the inductance of a single straight wire. This seemingly simple question actually does not really have an answer, and gives us the opportunity to talk about a very interesting point when solving Maxwell’s equations. Anybody working in the field of computational electromagnetics should have an understanding of this key concept, as it will help you properly set up and interpret models involving magnetic fields.
Magnetic Bearings
In the world of bearings, there are many different types to choose from. For certain applications, magnetic bearings trump their mechanical counterparts in several regards. In order to understand how the bearing will perform, using a simulation tool to calculate design parameters is a good idea.
Smart Materials Innately Transduce Energy, How Smart
Smart materials are able to convert one form of energy to another. These materials can be either solid or fluid, and are typically located within what’s called a smart structure. What makes these materials and structures so “smart”? Let’s find out.