The Physics of Water-Enabled Technology
The physics of water flow is an enabling element in technologies both new & old. The physics concepts are straightforward, but require careful treatment to get meaningful results about water flow. This is because water shows patterns that emerge from the sum of many small motions and are not predicted easily The challenge for a working engineer or manager is knowing when “emergent” patterns can be reliably extrapolated from one system from another, when they can be controlled, and how they connect to the laws of physics when a “sanity check” is needed. This course examines key principles in water physics through a lens of contemporary technology including membranes, turbines, flow cytometers, treatment ponds, gas exchangers & atomizers.
Topics
- This course will enable students to understand the fundamental principles and evaluate the engineering feasibility of contemporary and future technology that relies heavily on the physics of water flow. Application areas for the technology include: energy storage, generation, and transmission; material processing and separation; environmental and climate dynamics. Key concepts include: turbulence, boundary layers, suspension flows, and solute transport.
- Students will be able to follow and critically evaluate technology proposals that rely on fluid mechanics. Students will be able to calculate the limits and end-members of the most common fluid engineering processes (e.g. mixing, thrust, drag, and resuspension). Students will be able to take a multi-faceted flow problem and rewrite it as a series of linked elements, each one with a known fluid-mechanical nomenclature and standard solution method.
Official catalogue course objectives and student learning outcomes
Prerequisites & course information
{'preRequisiteCourse': '1184911', 'concurrentPrerequisit': False}; {'preRequisiteCourse': '1245674', 'concurrentPrerequisit': False}; {'preRequisiteCourse': '1245673', 'concurrentPrerequisit': False}; {'preRequisiteCourse': '1145002', 'concurrentPrerequisit': False}; {'preRequisiteCourse': '1145001', 'concurrentPrerequisit': False}; {'preRequisiteCourse': '1144962', 'concurrentPrerequisit': False}; {'preRequisiteCourse': '1144961', 'concurrentPrerequisit': False}; {'preRequisiteCourse': '1245672', 'concurrentPrerequisit': False}; {'preRequisiteCourse': '1245671', 'concurrentPrerequisit': False}
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026-2027