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IA about math behind airplanes


Kirolos Samir

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Hi,

 

Now my teacher asked us to find a topic for our math exploration (IA) and he told us that it has to be something that we like.

Now I like airplanes (jets, airbusses...etc) and I found more physics than math on the subject when I searched on Google.

So my question is if there's any math behind airplanes, what level is it and what type (algebra, calculus..etc).

And if there's not any math or Little math what topics can I choose instead?

 

Thanks.

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If you're looking for descriptions of the motion, regrettably it's not going to be a simple case of differential equations that can be solved analytically (although you could treat some simple approximations this way perhaps). A lot of the mathematics surrounding turbulent flow is still unresolved (see the Navier-Stokes Equations, one of the biggest unsolved problems in mathematics today) so you may find this too challenging a topic. Some approximations and things like laminar flow may be suitable - but not necessarily applicable to airplanes, just aerodynamics in general.

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You can choose any topic from the area but remember that it is important for examiners to see maths in your IA. It is perfectly fine to take a topic with airplanes since a lot of maths is usually involved it... but complicated maths. 

 

You could look into fluid dynamics and the main governing equations of fluid flow (Navier-Stokes equations). This, however, is a pretty advanced topic which involves complex calculus and most complicated flows (such as airplane flow which has turbulence) are solved using iterative methods - which is another area you could cover in your IA... but since you are doing Maths SL, is it worth that? I did Maths HL and I am pretty sure that I will not be able to understand some of the stuff!

 

Alternatively, you could look at navigation of airplanes and it would involve geometry. The first link that I found in Google might give you a brief overview of what you can do and it does not look as complicated as fluid dynamics: http://www.raeng.org.uk/publications/other/1-aircraft-navigation

 

If you are struggling to choose a topic, take a look at this link: http://ibmathsresources.com/maths-ia-maths-exploration-topics/

 

I, actually, stumbled upon a really interesting one: http://ibmathsresources.com/2014/09/07/batman-and-superman-maths/

 

Hope this helps!

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Hi,

 

It's perfectly fine to do a math IA on airplanes. My brother wrote his on this topic. He modelled the flight path of a certain airplane from 1 airport to another. He used alot of graphs, derivatives, integration and radians in order to model the flight path and find different variables. He got 16/20 on his IA (=6).

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  • 4 years later...
On 8/20/2015 at 9:43 AM, inshm2016 said:

Hi,

It's perfectly fine to do a math IA on airplanes. My brother wrote his on this topic. He modelled the flight path of a certain airplane from 1 airport to another. He used alot of graphs, derivatives, integration and radians in order to model the flight path and find different variables. He got 16/20 on his IA (=6).

Hi, I was just wondering what specific topics he covered in his IA? did he use the navier stokes equation, etc?

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