Worksheet 2 with comments

Honours Project Worksheet 2
Michael Daglish 0500981

Comments by Stuart McGaw

1.) Formulate a research question for your project. Details on the research question can be found in presentation 1 in the module folder.

Can fluid be accurately simulated when forces are applied and when objects are dropped into it?

2.) When developing a research question you must produce a question that can be answered by performing literature research, practical experimentation and critical analysis. The question should also focus the activities of your project.

a) What is the focus of your project?
How to accurately simulate fluid within a game engine.

b) What information do you need to find out about?
What are the existing techniques used to simulate fluid. How fluid react in real life and the physics behind it.

c) What Experimental work do you need to perform?
An application will be created which will contain some fluid of some sort and the user will be able to apply wind to fluid and see the reaction. Also the application will allow the user to drop objects into the fluid as well.

3.) How will the information that you obtain in 2 allow you to answer the research question?

The information that is obtained will help me answer the research question as I will find out what happens to fluid when forces are applied and objects are dropped in it. So I will know what fluid should act and researching into existing techniques will be able to find out if fluid can be accurately simulated.

Fluid dynamics is an areas in which a lot of work has already been done (though there’s still a lot to do), for example the PhysX physics engine has in-built fluid dynamics simulation (see here for a video example of fluid in a vessel which is ruptured then collapses into the fluid). I couldn’t find any examples of wind acting on fluids in PhysX but I know wind can be simulated in PhysX perhaps you would be best experimenting within that framework so you are not starting absolutely from scratch? Good luck with all the fun maths this is going to involve.