Branch of mechanical engineering
Fluid Mechanics
Wings, pumps, pipelines — and molten plastic filling a mold. If it flows, this branch owns it.
← Back to the latticeWhat it studies
Fluids carry force and energy: moving fluid trades pressure for speed (how wings lift), sticky fluid resists flow (viscosity — honey vs water), and both effects size everything from water mains to jet engines.
Polymer processing is applied fluid mechanics: molten plastic is a very viscous, very strange fluid (its viscosity drops the faster you shear it), and filling a thin mold in one second is a serious flow problem. Even our viscoelasticity simulation is half fluid mechanics — the dashpot is a tiny model of viscous flow.
Key ideas
pressure, buoyancy, and Bernoulli's tradeviscosity η — the fluid's internal frictionlaminar vs turbulent flow (Reynolds number)shear-thinning polymer meltslift, drag, and streamlines
Work in this branch on mpolyco
Go further (open resources)
More in the library · licenses on the acknowledgements page.