Remember the "Fluid Wrist Watch for a Fluid Dynamicist?" Well I've come across another watch for the horology-obsessed fluid dynamicist - the Urwerk UR-202 AlTiN [source: Forbes].

Urwerk UR-202 AlTiNMiniature turbines to damp winding weight

I mentioned last week that fans of fluid dynamics were in for a real treat with The American Physical Society's (APS) Division of Fluid Dynamics (DFD) meeting held in San Diego, November 19-20, 2012, and it did not disappoint. For more APS DFD stories ranging from shockwaves to the structure of an owl's wing, read on.

If you are into fluid dynamics then you have a real treat in store over the next couple of days. The American Physical Society's (APS) Division of Fluid Dynamics (DFD) meeting is underway in San Diego and runs November 19-20, 2012. For a taster of the eagerly anticipated presentations here's a brief selection ranging from huddling penguins to knuckleball soccer kicks.

Another news blast, this time with an aerodynamics theme. Read on to discover how trucks can be more efficient, how racecars and bikes can go faster, and how to make a stunning McLaren ad. Hint - it's all down to aerodynamics.

Making of an Aerodynamics Themed McLaren AdScroll to the bottom of the page to see the finished ad

It seems that analogies between fluid flow and other physical processes continue to proliferate. Add to that list the analogy between a hydraulic jump (think smooth-shallow to rough-deep transition in a sink under a running tap) to a white hole (think black hole running backwards in time). Physicists at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis, France recently showed through "...an experimental demonstration that the circular hydraulic jump represents a hydrodynamic white hole...".

Hydraulic Jump in a SinkImage License: Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) by James Kilfiger

Browsing through the news today I can across an interesting array of fluid dynamics related stories that I thought I'd share. So if you want to see how the Williams F1 team uses CFD and wind tunnels, or why a half-full (or is it half-empty?) bottle of water breaks when you hit it in a certain way (clue: cavitation), or how to make nanoballs (clue: bristles), and more, check out the links below.

I think everyone is well aware of the link between tsunamis and earthquakes after the devastation wreaked in recent years on Japan and Indonesia. However, there is a lesser known water wave called a seiche that is limited to semi-enclosed and fully-enclosed bodies of water, such as lakes, bays, swimming pools, and even puddles. I went searching for links between earthquakes and fluid dynamics after I experienced a minor earthquake (4.0 magnitude) here in New England.

While it seems that we are still a long way away from the cloaking devices seen in Star Trek, electromagnetic cloaking using metamaterials is now possible, at least in the laboratory. Not to be outdone, fluid flow and heat transfer have also recently joined the cloaking party.

For Submarines Stealth is Everything

What if you could change the shape of a tensile structure according to the natural loads, such as wind forces, it experiences? In exploring this question researchers at the University of Stuttgart and the company Bosch Rexroth came up with a tensile canopy (membrane) - nothing new there. However, their novel design uses a feedback system driven by a sensor array connected to hydraulic rams that apply counter forces to natural loads.

Morphing Tensile CanopyImage courtesy of Bosch Rexroth

A recent study by Intel using Green Revolution Cooling's CarnotJet System described immersing computer servers in mineral oil for electronics cooling. Of course the question that springs immediately to mind is why would you want to submerge sensitive electronics in a liquid?