Thursday, December 1, 2011

Why Two rowing boats moving parallel to each other come closer to each other after some time?It is about fluid dynamics

I believe this is an example of Bernoulli's principle.
That as the flow of the fluid increases, the pressure decreases. This is the same
principle involved in generating lift on a plane's wings.


I
suspect that the boats have to be within a certain distance for this event to occur.
Consider the flow of water if two boats are relatively close together, moving in
parallel.  Between the two boats there are two oars moving the water backward, while on
the outside of either boat there is only one oar acting on the water. Therefore, the
water between the two boats is moving faster than the water on the outside of either
boat. This means the pressure is lower between the boats than on the outside of either
boat. Since the pressure is higher on the outside than on the inside, the boats will
slowly move closer together. And the closer together they get, the higher the velocity
of the water between the boats and so they should draw together faster as the distance
between them decreases.

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