2026-09-18T21:11:12Zhttps://dspace.mit.edu/server/oai/requestoai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/879382022-01-13T07:54:05Zcom_1721.1_7582com_1721.1_7581col_1721.1_131024
Thomas Peacock.
Doyle, Brian Patrick
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
2014-06-13T22:34:32Z
2014-06-13T22:34:32Z
2011
2011
http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/87938
880147126
Thesis: S.B., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 2011.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (page 31).
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.
by Brian Patrick Doyle.
S.B.
31 pages
eng
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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.
http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582
Mechanical Engineering.
Propulsion via buoyancy driven boundary layer
Thesis
application/pdf
Publication
unknown
unknown
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<Abstract>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.</Abstract>
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