◄Previous: Contents

# Introduction

We all have constant daily experience of fluids, from breathing air to taking showers and checking weather forecasts, which means that we all have a great deal of intuitive knowledge about how they behave; this course will build on that knowledge.

The Earth’s atmosphere and oceans are two of the most important fluids for engineers, and a working knowledge of them is required in many situations. For example, in the aeronautical and aerospace industries the behaviour and properties of the atmosphere from ground level to outer space are key aspects in the design and operation of aircraft and space vehicles. In the field of civil engineering, the simulation and study of tides and tidal flows is necessary in the design of harbours, canals, protective barrier schemes, drainage pipelines, offshore structures, etc.

In the first half of this course, you will be able to learn about the Earth’s atmosphere – how properties like density, temperature and speed of sound vary with height, the effect of terrain on wind near the ground and how the Coriolis effect contributes to the formation of weather systems.

The second half of the course concerns the study of Earth's oceans, including the formation of waves and tides and how both are affected by land masses.

This free course is an adapted extract from the Open University course T229 Mechanical engineering: heat and flow.

◄Contents►Next: Learning outcomes

OpenLearn - Engineering: environmental fluids
Except for third party materials and otherwise, this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence, full copyright detail can be found in the acknowledgements section. Please see full copyright statement for details.