• Transport Phenomena improve the records at Salt Lake Olympic games
  jpg file (0.9 MBytes), pdf file (2.5 MBytes)

• Traveling hydraulic jumps cause "bores" at the river banks
  Hydraulic jump is a sudden increase of depth at a well-marked front observed when water is flowing fast, and especially when it is shallow. See the picture of a bore at Severn River as caught by D.H. Peregrine: jpg file, pdf file

• Transport Phenomena and Tsunamis (Eh!, what is a "tsunami"?)
  Thank you for asking. Tsunamis are large water waves, typically generated by seismic activity, that have historically caused significant damage to coastal communities throughout the world. More info here. Note that USGS has a page with tsunami animations.

• Do you play golf?
  It is better to use a smooth ball. Why anyone else uses these terrible balls?

• Do you like coffee?
  Coffee making is an example of flow through porous media. In the process heated water is poured over ground coffee and dissolves the ground beans that makes the coffee. The quality of coffee we make depends on the flow and temperature of the water.
  More info here (contributed by Osa).

• Do you use ketchup?
  If yes, you know that you need to bang on the bottle to get your ketchup; ketchup is a complex fluid and thus it does not behave like say water.
  More info here (contributed by Osa).

• Flowing sand in space
  The first thing engineers do before engaging into a construction project is to perform soil studies to learn about the stability of the grounds that will support their structures. Another area where soil studies are important lies in the prediction of earthquake effects. Contrary to popular belief, soil sometimes acts like a fluid and exhibits flow behavior. This article aims at evaluating the fluid like properties of sand in space to better understand what goes on during an earthquake on earth, and also enhance our understanding about granular material in general.
  More info here (contributed by Marwan).

• Drug delivery and trasport phenomena
  Drug delivery from the Drugdel.com web page. This site describes better ways of delivering a controlled amount of a drug in the body. It gives information about current research that is going on to optimize drug delivery using polymeric, transdermal, pulmonary, and oral means as well as other things such as prodrugs, liposomes, and colloids. Controlling the amount of drug that is placed in the body is important because if the drug is too slow to diffuse out into the body then the drug will not work, and if the drug diffuses too fast into the body then a high dose might harm the body. Another aspect of drug control is to make sure that the drug gets to the site of the body that needs it. Drugs need to be designed so that they can flow through the body and not get degraded and used up before they reach the site of need. By controlling drug delivery, fewer doses can be taken (which is good because people forget to take their medicine! and lower the efficiency of the drug) and there will be less danger of an overdose.
  More info here (contributed by Linden).

• Transport phenomena in fractured rock
  Fractured rock has been used for various processes including chemical treatment of radioactive water. More infomation on the physics of fluid movement, deformation, contaminant migration and energy transport under the broad range of physical situations where fractured formations exist can be found here (contributed by Jaeho).

• Artificial kidney design
  An artificial kidney is used to purify the blood when the human kidneys fail. The method consists of solute diffusion into the (artificial) capillary tubes where it reacts with an enzyme.
  More info here (contributed by Jermey).

• Fluid dynamics improves understanding of speech production
  Fluid dynamics plays a significant role in something as common as human speech. At first thought, most would not think that there is any form of transport involved in the process of speaking, however transport phenomena exists due to air flow through the vocal cords. Understanding of fluid dynamics in this process can help improve speech production - to make computer generated voice sound as human like as possible. An example of where synthetic voice can be seen is with voice menu prompts one receives when calling for customer service. To make the voice human like and less artificial, means that the natural rhythm and pitch variations present in human speech need to be considered. The air in the vocal system is not static, the sound field is carried along with the flow of air from the lungs to out of the mouth; nor is it uniform based on the constrictions of the tongue to the palate. Turbulence is also present depending on the area of the vocal tract needed to pronounce a sound. The area known as aeroacoustics in fluid mechanics, brings new ways to which airflow and the sound it makes may be characterized unlike traditional science/physics based models. In summary, the article shows how the motion of the sound field can have an impact on how sounds are produced and how they are transmitted to the listener.
  More info here (contributed by Inuka).

• Aerosols in the upper airway.
  An example of transport phenomena in our life is seen in the delivery of aerosols to the upper airway. The upper airway includes the nose, pharynx and larynx. Aerosol medication could be needed to relieve inflammation, for asthma control, for anesthesia and so on. Knowledge of transport equations is used to modify how these are packaged physically and how they are delivered. In fact, a lot of research is been done in aerosol delivery to eyes, lungs, etc., based on transport process equations.
  More info here (contributed by Tosin).

• Transport phenomena in particulate systems
  The goal here is to study the mechanisms governing transport phenomena, examine and quantify the particle-particle, particle-fluid and fluid-fluid interaction under various conditions, apply the above findings to the understanding/modeling of complex multi-phase flow phenomena encountered in industries, such as the drying of grain, the coating and tableting of pharmaceutical products, and the processing of oil shale in fluidized bed. At the same time, the circulating fluidized beds, used in novel non-polluting cogeneration coal combustors and petroleum processes, are being studied using sophisticated experimental and modeling techniques. The flow of granular materials can vary from coal in silos to sugar in a dispenser. And the understanding about the behavior of individual particles can not only help in explaining known phenomena but also predicting new & unexpected experimental observations.
  More info here (contributed by Jun).

• Reaction-transport phenomena in hydrogeologic settings
  These phenomena influence our daily live; the water we daily drink and the gas we use in our cars come from the soil. Understanding the transport of the ground-water and the mineral deposit is vital for our well-being and our health. Thus, developing efficient methods is crucial to avoid a bad quality of water.
  More info here (contributed by Justine).

• Do you enjoy air traveling? (What about space traveling?)
  You may find more details on the flows around aircrafts and spacecrafts here.
  (contributed by Victor).

ENCH630: Transport Phenomena