Stability and Sensitivity Analysis of Bird Flapping Flight

A Flight Mechanics-Centric Review of Bird-Scale Flapping Flight

This paper reviews the flight mechanics and control of birds and bird-size aircraft. It is intended to fill a niche in the current survey literature which focuses primarily on the aerodynamics, flight dynamics and control of insect scale flight. We review the flight mechanics from first principles and summarize some recent results on the stability and control of birds and bird-scale aircraft. B...

The moment of inertia of bird wings and the inertial power requirement for flapping flight

The agility and manoeuvrability of a flying animal and the inertial power required to flap the wings are related to the moment of inertia of the wings. The moments of inertia of the wings of 29 bird species and three bat species were determined using wing strip analysis. We also measured wing length, wing span, wing area, wing mass and body mass. A strong correlation (r2=0.997) was found betwee...

Optimizing the Forces and Propulsive Efficiency in Bird-Scale Flapping Flight

This paper presents first-principle and numerical studies of flapping flight with the objective of optimizing the force production and propulsive efficiency. Strouhal number is identified as a critical parameter affecting all of these variables, and the optimum ranges of Strouhal number are calculated. The results of the calculations, in particular, explain why a value in the range of 0.2−0.4 i...

Sensitivity and Stability Radius in Data Envelopment Analysis

Biomechanics of bird flight.

Power output is a unifying theme for bird flight and considerable progress has been accomplished recently in measuring muscular, metabolic and aerodynamic power in birds. The primary flight muscles of birds, the pectoralis and supracoracoideus, are designed for work and power output, with large stress (force per unit cross-sectional area) and strain (relative length change) per contraction. U-s...