How fast did that dinosaur go?—M. Chemical engineers are often expected to be versatile, as in this problem, suggested by an article in the April 1991 issue of Scientific American, “How Dinosaurs...

How fast did that dinosaur go?—M. Chemical engineers are often expected to be versatile, as in this problem, suggested by an article in the April 1991 issue of Scientific American, “How Dinosaurs Ran,” by R. McNeill Alexander. Assume that the speed u of a walking, running, or galloping animal depends on its leg length , its stride length s, and g (this because such locomotion involves some up-and-down motion). Perform standard dimensional analysis to show that the ratio s/should be a function of the Froude number u2/g. Based on observations of different quadrupeds from cats to rhinoceroses, and two species of bipeds (humans and kangaroos), the article showed that with some experimental scatter, ln(s/) . = 0.618 + 0.308 ln(Fr) + 0.035 [ln(Fr)]2. 11 For most animals, the leg length is approximately four times the foot length or diameter. Fossilized dinosaur tracks in a Texan gully showed footprints with an approximate diameter of 0.95 m and a stride length of 4.5 m. What was the speed of the dinosaur on that day?