Propulsion via buoyancy driven boundary layer

Heating a sloped surface generates a well-studied boundary layer flow, but the resulting surface forces have never been studied in propulsion applications. We built a triangular wedge to test this effect by mounting a resistive heating pad to one of its conducting sloped surfaces. We submerge the wedge within a two-layer water stratification, turn the heater on and track the wedge's motion. We have observed a propulsion speed of 0.613 ± 0.042 mm/s with a temperature difference between the heated surface and ambient fluid of 4°C. We also use theory and numerics to predict the propulsion speed and predicted a speed of 1.43 mm/s, within an order of magnitude of the observed results, and thus our model was validated by the experiments.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2011

Author dc:creator

• Doyle, Brian Patrick

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Thomas Peacock.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/87938

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/87938