A very large soap bubble, on the other hand, will also move through the same air in a turbulent manner however, it will conform to the turbulence patterns in the flow as it seeks to maintain a minimal surface area, being deformed by the varying pressure and velocity fluctuations in the air. When exposed to a gentle breeze, a small soap bubble will move through the air in a turbulent manner, but will retain its spherical form. In nature, and especially underwater, turbulent flows vary widely, both with distance and with time.Ī simple illustration is given by soap bubbles. Modelling this process correctly has direct implications for our understanding of climate change. For instance, without turbulent flows, mixing processes between different water masses would be very slow, and the same is true with energy exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere. For example, when an underwater structure is exposed to turbulent flows, it experiences more stress than if the flow was laminar, and that can lead to structural fatigue and maybe even premature failure.īut turbulence also has some positive aspects. Just as turbulent flow is an undesirable phenomenon for an airplane, it can also cause problems in the ocean. Water in the oceans can also exhibit turbulent characteristics. So, as you have likely deduced, your sense of how big the bump is depends on the characteristics of the air that the plane flies through. ![]() But if the volume covers a large portion of the airplane, then you feel a large bump. If the variations are large, you feel a correspondingly large bump.įurthermore, if the variations are large, but the volume of air is small – such that it spans only a small portion of the airplane – then you only feel a small bump (if you feel any bump at all). If the variations in the air speed (or density) are small, you feel a small bump. When an airplane encounters a portion of air that is moving in a different way (or has a different density) than the air around it, the airplane experiences a bump. When this is not the case, we call it turbulent flow. If all parts of the air were flowing uniformly, and they all had the same density, then we would call this laminar flow. ![]() Rather, some parts of the air are moving faster than others, and sometimes in different directions, while some parts are less dense than others. This is because the air the airplane flies through is not moving with uniform speed and does not have a uniform density. Even though an airplane moves through a medium that is invisible and not very dense, the plane almost never flies smoothly, right? There are always bumps and jolts along the way on flights. Although you might be new to the concept of turbulent flow, if you have ever flown in an airplane, you have certainly experienced turbulence first hand! So even if our main concern is water, let us try to think about how we perceive turbulent air.
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