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Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Monday, February 24, 2014 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium

Howard Stone

"Ice Lubrication for Moving Heavy Stones to the Forbidden City in 15th – 16th Century China"

ABSTRACT -- Lubrication plays a crucial role in reducing friction for transporting heavy objects, from moving a 60-ton statue in ancient Egypt to relocating a 15,000-ton building in modern society. Although in China spoked wheels appeared approximately 1500 B.C., in the 15th and 16th centuries sliding sledges were still used in transporting huge stones to the Forbidden City in Beijing. We show that an ice lubrication technique of water-lubricated wood-on-ice sliding was used instead of the common ancient approaches, such as wood-on-wood sliding or the use of log rollers. The technique took full advantage of the natural properties of ice, such as sufficient hardness, flatness, and low friction with a water film. This ice-assisted movement is more efficient for such heavy-load and low-speed transportation necessary for the stones of the Forbidden City. The transportation of the huge stones provides an early example of ice lubrication and complements current studies of the high-speed regime relevant to competitive ice sports.

SPEAKER -- Professor Howard A. Stone received the Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of California at Davis in 1982 and the PhD in Chemical Engineering from Caltech in 1988. Following a postdoctoral year in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge, in 1989 Howard joined the faculty of the (now) School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University, where he eventually became the Vicky Joseph Professor of Engineering and Applied Mathematics. In July 2009 Howard moved to Princeton University where he is Donald R. Dixon ’69 and Elizabeth W. Dixon Professor in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

Professor Stone's research interests are in fluid dynamics, especially as they arise in research and applications at the interface of engineering, chemistry, physics, and biology.  He received the NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), and is past Chair of the Division of Fluid Dynamics of the APS. He is currently on the editorial or advisory boards of New Journal of Physics, Physics of Fluids, Langmuir, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Soft Matter, and is co-editor the (new) Soft Matter Book Series.  He is the first recipient of the G.K. Batchelor Prize in Fluid Dynamics, which was awarded in August 2008. In 2009 he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. In 2011 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.


Engineering Colloquium home page: https://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov