Related papers: Turbulence enhances bird tail aerodynamic performa…
Using a flapping robot in a wind tunnel, we show that flapping faster amplifies existing longitudinal static stability (focusing on the pitch stiffness) and can even make an unstable flier stable. We show that stability for a flapper is not…
The transition from laminar to turbulent flow has been a notorious riddle in fluid dynamics since the nineteenth century. Hydrodynamic instabilities were regarded as a cause for the onset of turbulence, but their theoretical investigation…
Thermal soaring enables birds to perform cost-efficient flights during foraging or migration trips. Yet, although all soaring birds exploit vertical winds effectively, this group contains species that vary strongly in their morphologies.…
In the field of fixed wing aircraft, many morphing technologies have been applied to the wing, such as adaptive airfoil, variable span aircraft, variable swept angle aircraft, etc., but few are aimed at the tail. The traditional fixed wing…
Hovering insects are limited by their physiology and need to rotate their wings at the end of each back and forth motion to keep the wing's leading edge ahead of its trailing edge. The wing rotation at the end of each half-stroke pushes the…
Galactic and intergalactic flows often exhibit relative motion between the cold dense gas and the hot diffuse medium. Such multiphase flows -- involving gas at different temperatures, densities, and ionization states -- for instance,…
Considerable effort has been expended over the last 2 centuries into explaining the behavior of fluid flow after the onset of turbulence. While perturbations in the velocity field have been shown to explain turbulent transitions, a physical…
The wing structure of several insects, including dragonflies, is not smooth, but corrugated; its vertical cross-section consists of a connected series of line segments. Some previous studies have reported that corrugated wings exhibit…
Thermal soaring saves much energy, but flying large distances in this form represents a great challenge for birds, people and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). The solution is to make use of so-called thermals, which are localized, warmer…
Surfaces with filamentous structures are ubiquitous in nature on many different scales, ranging from forests to micrometer-sized cilia in organs. Hairy surfaces are elastic and porous, and it is not fully understood how they modify…
We present novel numerical simulations investigating the evolution of liquid droplets into bag-like structures in turbulent airflows. The droplet bag breakup problem is of significance for many multiphase processes in scientific and…
Laminar as well as turbulent oscillatory pipe flows occur in many fields of biomedical science and engineering. Pulmonary air flow and vascular blood flow are usually laminar, because shear forces acting on the physiological system ought to…
Turbulence is prevalent in nature and industry, from large-scale wave dynamics to small-scale combustion nozzle sprays. In addition to the multi-scale nonlinear complexity and both randomness and coherent structures in its dynamics,…
Biological locomotion, observed in the flexible wings of birds and insects, bodies and fins of aquatic mammals and fishes, consists of their ability to morph the wings/fins. The morphing capability holds significance in the abilities of…
High resolution direct numerical simulations of rotating and flapping bumblebee wings are presented and their aerodynamics is studied focusing on the role of leading edge vortices and the associated helicity production. We first study the…
Inspired by the wake-surfing nature of animals, this study aims to understand the aerodynamic force variation on a wing surfing in an unsteady 2-D wake. Wind tunnel experiments were conducted using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) and force…
The aerial flocking of birds, or murmurations, has fascinated observers while presenting many challenges to behavioral study and simulation. We examine how the periphery of murmurations remain well bounded and cohesive. We also investigate…
Fluid dynamics, and flight in particular, is a domain where organisms challenge our understanding of its physics. Integrating the current knowledge of animal flight, we propose to revisit the use of live animals to study physical phenomena.…
Controlling UAV flights precisely requires a realistic dynamic model and accurate state estimates from onboard sensors like UAV, GPS and visual observations. Obtaining a precise dynamic model is extremely difficult, as important aerodynamic…
This research examines the aerodynamic performance of wavy (corrugated) airfoils, focusing specifically on analyzing the impact of two angles of attack: the airfoil's angle of attack and the tail's angle of attack (beta). Simulations were…