suck squeeze bang blow

January 20, 2005 4:22 PM

suck squeeze bang blow (SFW)
posted by jonah (21 comments total)

OUCH!

[that was kinda neat]
posted by kamylyon at 4:26 PM on January 20, 2005

I liked that, but had to watch it three times to take in all the info going on at the same time.
posted by qwerty155 at 4:37 PM on January 20, 2005

Why are they torturing the Scrubbing Bubbles®?

[cool post, jonah]
posted by Man O' Straw at 4:47 PM on January 20, 2005

Ditto on the having to go through it several times. But that may have been because it's just so fun to watch.
posted by asnowballschance at 5:04 PM on January 20, 2005

very nice
posted by gnutron at 5:11 PM on January 20, 2005

suck squeeze bang blow;
oh what a relief it is...
posted by ba at 5:15 PM on January 20, 2005

Not to be confused with Suck, Squash, Bang, Blow?
posted by absalom at 5:56 PM on January 20, 2005

My husband the jet-engine mechanic approves; he provided the audio portion of the tour.

That's the closest his mouth has been to my ear in months.
Thanks jonah!
posted by nanu at 6:06 PM on January 20, 2005

Turbines are a hidden driver in engineering discoveries. Almost all fluid dynamics software was developed specifically because of turbines. High temperature ceramics and metal matrix materials were developed to withstand the high stress and temperature environments that occur in turbines used both as engines and as generators. Finite element software has been heavily driven by the need to have accurate analysis of the pieces of a turbine, since failures can be catastrophic and optimizing their design can reap huge benefits. One of these days I will put together a "wonders of turbines" post.
posted by jonah at 6:09 PM on January 20, 2005

Geeky engineering fun
posted by caddis at 6:21 PM on January 20, 2005

jonah, are you an MIT guy or something? That's fascinating stuff. Sounds like Click and Clack, the car guys, making a joke. I'll be waiting for "Wonders of Turbines".

Btw, I thought you were joking, but it made sense.
posted by snsranch at 6:26 PM on January 20, 2005

Not to be confused with Suck, Squash, Bang, Blow?

THE SECRET LIFE OF MACHINES! Oh my god absalom, I've been searching for the name of it for ages. Every once in a while I get a picture of a chalk drawing of Rudolf Diesel pitching off the end of a cruise ship, and exclaim "I go, goodbye!" Then people look at me funny

Jonah's spot on about all the spinoffs. Turbines are just that cool. Thanks for the link.
posted by Popular Ethics at 6:47 PM on January 20, 2005

Great post, Jonah. Turbines are such fantastic machines, and it's not often that we are reminded of that, and even less often are we reminded of just how important they are. A great deal more than just jet aircraft would be impossible without them.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 6:49 PM on January 20, 2005

Awesome!
posted by nj_subgenius at 7:49 PM on January 20, 2005

Theres a special place in my heart for Rolls-Royce compressor wheels...
posted by sled at 7:51 PM on January 20, 2005

This officially qualifies as "neato."
posted by Joey Michaels at 9:58 PM on January 20, 2005

I'm not from MIT, I am a proud Gaucho though. I love thermodynamics (my photo blog is isentrope.com if that means anything to anyone, which it shouldn't, but is my favorite thermo term).

There is a beautiful simplicity to thermo- and fluid-dynamics. Everything wants to equalize -- pressure, temperature, etc, plus everything wants to take the easiest path. Fluid always finds the least restrictive route, heat (and electricity) will always conduct through the path of least resistance; a simple motto might be "resistance is futile", because nature wont bother.

Unfortunately, it is hard to simulate everything that can happen. Just because I think I have found the simple path doesn't mean that physics agrees. There are plenty of head slapping moments in the lab when the simplest answer says "here I am jackass, see me now?"

p.s. "isentrope" is a constant line of entropy on a diagram (like pressure vs. enthalpy, which is used to size your air conditioner). Entropy is the amount of disorder in a system. So, an isentrope roughly means "constant disorder". Cool. For dorks.
posted by jonah at 10:43 PM on January 20, 2005

I have always associated 'suck squeeze bang blow' with the four stroke cycle. Cool animation though.
posted by twine42 at 1:56 AM on January 21, 2005

twine42: I have always associated 'suck squeeze bang blow' with the four stroke cycle.

Well here's the thing: The turbine cycle (Brayton) hast the same four phases as the four stroke (Otto) cycle, they just use different mechanisms. (You can watch the air getting sucked, squeezed, banged and blown in the linked animation. Keep an eye on the pressure and temperature indicators.)

I remember the first time I made the conceptual link between car engines, which I understood, and jet engines, which until then were magic. Moments like that give me a rush, like the knowledge has made me a more powerful person.
posted by Popular Ethics at 6:47 AM on January 21, 2005

Oh man! I, too, have been trying to remember the name of The Secret Life of Machines for a long time. I asked all my sciencey friends whether they remembered a show that ended with jazz music playing to vacuum cleaners with rockets flying around...all I got was weird looks. I was starting to think it was just a hallucination. Thanks! The jet animation is awesome, too.
posted by nTeleKy at 10:25 AM on January 25, 2005

cool beans.
posted by adampsyche at 10:51 AM on January 25, 2005