MECH&AE 150B
Aerodynamics
Description: Lecture, four hours; discussion, two hours; outside study, six hours. Requisites: courses 103, 150A. Advanced aspects of potential flow theory. Incompressible flow around thin airfoils (lift and moment coefficients) and wings (lift, induced drag). Gas dynamics: oblique shocks, Prandtl/Meyer expansion. Linearized subsonic and supersonic flow around thin airfoils and wings. Wave drag. Transonic flow. Letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
A very good professor, he seemed concerned about students learning and went out of his way to accommodate for us. He seemed to have been bullied into making the class much easier, as he kept mentioning that his class from the previous year had complained a lot. The exams seemed quite easy to me, they were almost 100% identical to the homework problems & practice problems. The only difficulty was the T/F questions on theory. These seemed to be impossible for me, no matter how much I read the book. On the second midterm, I got 100% on the test, except for the T/F section, which put me below the curve I did so badly. The class was easy to skip, as it was late in the day, the homework was straightforward, and his PP slides had a lot of interesting, but unnecessary, facts. However, there are a lot of interesting things that he covers in class, and be sure to go before the Midterms as he only goes over the solutions to practice problems in class - I don't believe they are posted. Overall he seemed like a pretty nice guy and wouldn't hesitate to answer whatever questions you have. He was pretty fair on regrades if there were any errors on your exam, too. One thing that I didn't like about this class was the scope. This is probably the only class I've taken in engineering where I can say that I felt that they should've taught us more. It seemed like half the course was just review from 150A, a third was the principles of what you learn in 150A but applied to airfoils, and the remainder was new material. The entire first midterm was pretty much 100% review, and I felt that they could've stepped up the pace a bit without losing too many of us. I don't know if it's the department or Prof. Tsai but they probably should've emphasized theory more and practice less, as practically applying fluid mechanics is pretty easy, generally, but the T/F theory questions seemed to kill just about everyone. The project seemed kind of tacked on, at the end, too - and Prof Tsai said himself we shouldn't put much effort into it, but rather study for finals. I may have missed something, but I don't remember him teaching us much about the CFD programs in lecture, either. I think it was just an excuse to say that they taught us CFD, even if we were going off of step by step instructions. In any case, I thought he was a good teacher and the course seemed pretty easy, a welcome reprieve for any engineer.
A very good professor, he seemed concerned about students learning and went out of his way to accommodate for us. He seemed to have been bullied into making the class much easier, as he kept mentioning that his class from the previous year had complained a lot. The exams seemed quite easy to me, they were almost 100% identical to the homework problems & practice problems. The only difficulty was the T/F questions on theory. These seemed to be impossible for me, no matter how much I read the book. On the second midterm, I got 100% on the test, except for the T/F section, which put me below the curve I did so badly. The class was easy to skip, as it was late in the day, the homework was straightforward, and his PP slides had a lot of interesting, but unnecessary, facts. However, there are a lot of interesting things that he covers in class, and be sure to go before the Midterms as he only goes over the solutions to practice problems in class - I don't believe they are posted. Overall he seemed like a pretty nice guy and wouldn't hesitate to answer whatever questions you have. He was pretty fair on regrades if there were any errors on your exam, too. One thing that I didn't like about this class was the scope. This is probably the only class I've taken in engineering where I can say that I felt that they should've taught us more. It seemed like half the course was just review from 150A, a third was the principles of what you learn in 150A but applied to airfoils, and the remainder was new material. The entire first midterm was pretty much 100% review, and I felt that they could've stepped up the pace a bit without losing too many of us. I don't know if it's the department or Prof. Tsai but they probably should've emphasized theory more and practice less, as practically applying fluid mechanics is pretty easy, generally, but the T/F theory questions seemed to kill just about everyone. The project seemed kind of tacked on, at the end, too - and Prof Tsai said himself we shouldn't put much effort into it, but rather study for finals. I may have missed something, but I don't remember him teaching us much about the CFD programs in lecture, either. I think it was just an excuse to say that they taught us CFD, even if we were going off of step by step instructions. In any case, I thought he was a good teacher and the course seemed pretty easy, a welcome reprieve for any engineer.
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