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Stories · 1
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Cement Canoe With A Contrarian Approach
Markgor writes: "There is an article in Wired News today about a group of students at the University of Alabama (Huntsville) who entered into the 2001 ASCE/MBT National Concrete Canoe Competition with a canoe that was built to achieve forward propulsion through matching natural resonance.""Normally, if two objects share an exact natural resonance, the excited vibrations would usually lead the weaker object to fall apart, much like the Tacoma Narrows Bridge did when the equal frequencies of the wind and the structure of the bridge matched. However, since the canoe was designed with a special mix of concrete, it was flexible enough to withstand the vibrations and harnessed it into forward propulsion. They're now talking about its possible use in space, such as interplanetary probes using natural resonance to propel itself."