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🔬 Interactive Fluid Simulators

Play with these simulators to see fluid dynamics in action! No installation required.

Credit: PhET Interactive Simulations

Fluid Pressure & Flow

Explore how pressure affects fluid flow in pipes. Change the diameter and see what happens!

More Simulators Coming Soon!

Working on adding more interactive fluid dynamics tools…

🎥 Must-Watch Fluid Dynamics Videos

Visual explanations that make complex concepts intuitive and fascinating.

How Hard Can You Hit a Golf Ball? (at 100,000 FPS)

Channel: SmarterEveryDay

Wanna learn how to hit a golfball at 500mph?

How does a Sailboat Actually Work?

Channel: Veritasium

How boats can sail faster than the wind using fluid dynamics.

NASA’s CFD Visualizations

Channel: NASA

Stunning simulations of spacecraft aerodynamics.

🧠 Fluid Dynamics Quiz

Test your knowledge with these interactive flashcards. Choose an option and click to reveal the answer!

What principle explains why airplanes can fly?

A) Pascal’s Principle
B) Bernoulli’s Principle
C) Archimedes’ Principle
D) Newton’s Third Law
Click any option to reveal answer

✅ Correct Answer: B

Bernoulli’s principle – Faster moving air over the wing creates lower pressure, generating lift.

💡 This is also why shower curtains get sucked inward!

What property of fluid describes its “thickness” or resistance to flow?

A) Density
B) Viscosity
C) Pressure
D) Surface Tension
Click any option to reveal answer

✅ Correct Answer: B

Viscosity – Honey has high viscosity, water has low viscosity.

💡 Ketchup is a non-Newtonian fluid – its viscosity changes under pressure!

What type of flow is smooth and orderly, with parallel layers?

A) Laminar Flow
B) Turbulent Flow
C) Transitional Flow
D) Chaotic Flow
Click any option to reveal answer

✅ Correct Answer: A

Laminar flow – Like slow-moving honey or water from a gentle tap.

💡 Laminar flow fountains create that clear “glass-like” water effect!

What dimensionless number predicts whether flow will be laminar or turbulent?

A) Mach Number
B) Reynolds Number
C) Froude Number
D) Weber Number
Click any option to reveal answer

✅ Correct Answer: B

Reynolds number – It compares inertial forces to viscous forces.

💡 Low Re: bacteria swimming in honey. High Re: whale swimming in ocean!

What is the thin region near a surface where velocity changes from zero to free stream velocity?

A) Shear Layer
B) Boundary Layer
C) Velocity Gradient
D) Surface Layer
Click any option to reveal answer

✅ Correct Answer: B

Boundary layer – Where all the “action” happens in fluid dynamics!

💡 Golf ball dimples trip the boundary layer to reduce drag!

What phenomenon causes alternating vortices behind a bluff body?

A) Flow Separation
B) Cavitation
C) Vortex Shedding
D) Turbulence
Click any option to reveal answer

✅ Correct Answer: C

Vortex shedding – Creates the “Von Kármán vortex street” behind objects.

💡 This is why chimneys often have spiral fins – to disrupt vortex shedding!

What equations describe the motion of viscous fluid substances?

A) Euler Equations
B) Navier-Stokes Equations
C) Bernoulli Equations
D) Laplace Equations
Click any option to reveal answer

✅ Correct Answer: B

Navier-Stokes equations – The fundamental equations of fluid dynamics.

💡 Solving these exactly for all cases is one of the Millennium Prize Problems worth $1 million!

What repeating pattern appears when fluid flows past a cylinder?

A) Kármán Vortex Street
B) Taylor-Couette Flow
C) Rayleigh-Bénard Convection
D) Poiseuille Flow
Click any option to reveal answer

✅ Correct Answer: A

Kármán vortex street – A beautiful example of flow instability.

💡 This pattern can be seen in cloud formations behind islands!

What phenomenon causes a fluid jet to stay attached to a convex surface?

A) Magnus Effect
B) Venturi Effect
C) Coanda Effect
D) Bernoulli Effect
Click any option to reveal answer

✅ Correct Answer: C

Coanda effect – Used in aircraft wing design and some VTOL aircraft.

💡 Try pouring water down a spoon – it follows the curve due to Coanda effect!

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