The diversity of wing morphologies in birds reflects their variety of flight styles and the associated aerodynamic and inertial requirements. Although the aerodynamics underlying wing morphology can be informed by aeronautical research, important differences exist between planes and birds. In particular, birds operate at lower, transitional Reynolds numbers than do most aircraft. To date, few q...

At first sight, echolocating bats face a difficult trade-off. As flying animals, they would benefit from a streamlined geometric shape to reduce aerodynamic drag and increase flight efficiency. However, as echolocating animals, their pinnae generate the acoustic cues necessary for navigation and foraging. Moreover, species emitting sound through their nostrils often feature elaborate noseleaves...

Studies of insect flight have focused on aerodynamic lift, both in quasi-steady and unsteady regimes. This is partly influenced by the choice of hovering motions along a horizontal stroke plane, where aerodynamic drag makes no contribution to the vertical force. In contrast, some of the best hoverers--dragonflies and hoverflies--employ inclined stroke planes, where the drag in the down- and ups...

Motor cycle accidents have been increased for the past two decades. Helmet can protect the vehicle riders from severe injuries during road accident to certain extent. To design a functional helmet, it is important to analyze the shape of the helmet and visor portion. Hence, an attempt has been made for design and analysis of new helmet by considering the drag pressure and anti-glare visor. The ...

The parafoil is an aerodynamic decelerator that uses the concept of parachute and airfoil aerodynamics. The device has been used as a parachute for high-precision delivering of payload (military and civilian), to recover sounding rockets, for various tethered applications (to carry instrumentation for weather survey, air pollution measurements, radar tracking systems), and as recreational parac...

With rising oil prices, the issue of energy economy in transportation is getting much attention. At the same time, new emissions standards for tractor-trailer vehicles introduce additional challenges for the manufacturers to achieve improvements in vehicle fuel economy. As part of the U.S. Department of Energy Office of FreedomCAR and Vehicle Technologies’ Heavy Vehicle Aerodynamic Drag Consort...

As aircraft wings become much more flexible due to the use of light-weight composites material, adverse aerodynamics at off-design performance can result from changes in wing shapes due to aeroelastic deflections. Increased drag, hence increased fuel burn, is a potential consequence. Without means for aeroelastic compensation, the benefit of weight reduction from the use of light-weight materia...

a knowledge of physical and aerodynamic properties of agricultural crops is important and essentially required for the design and development of a crop's harvesting and post-harvesting equipments. in the present research, experiments were conducted to determine physical and aerodynamic properties of fars province pinto bean namely: kernel size and shape (length, width, thickness, projected...