Currently viewing the category: "Bio-mimicry"

A Vision for Shape-Adaptive Aircraft

On January 16, 2018 · In Aerospace Engineering, Aircraft, Bio-mimicry, Composite Materials, Nonlinear Structures, Novel Materials/Tailored Structures, Shape Adaptation

Over the last couple of months, a number of readers of the blog and listeners of the podcast have asked me about my research. Although there is a brief overview on the Contact page, the information there probably leaves too many things unsaid to form a clear picture […]

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Boundary Layer Separation and Pressure Drag

On October 15, 2016 · In Aerodynamics, Bio-mimicry, Engineering

At the start of the 19th century, after studying the highly cambered thin wings of many different birds, Sir George Cayley designed and built the first modern aerofoil, later used on a hand-launched glider. This biomimetic, highly cambered and thin-walled design remained the predominant aerofoil shape for almost 100 years, mainly due to the fact that […]

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The Evolution of Airplanes

On December 9, 2014 · In Bio-mimicry, General Aerospace, History

Adrian Bejan is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science at Duke University and as an offshoot from his thermodynamics research he has pondered the question why evolution exists in natural i.e. biological and geophysical, and man-made i.e. technological realms. To account for the progress of design in evolution Prof. Bejan conceived the constructal […]

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Developments in Composite Materials

On August 18, 2013 · In Bio-mimicry, Case Studies, Composite Materials, General Aerospace, Technology

I have just returned from the International Conference for Composite Materials (ICCM) in Montreal, Canada and would like to share a few observations and key points about the developments in the composite world that may not be so easily accessible to a broader audience.

1) The Great Advance – Applications

ICCM is the biggest conference […]

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High-Lift Devices

On April 21, 2012 · In Aerodynamics, Bio-mimicry

In a previous post I introduced the concept of boundary layer separation and how aquatic animals actively or passively morph their skins to delay this phenomenon. As a brief recap, when flow over a surface encounters an adverse pressure gradient (i.e. the fluid pressure increases in […]

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Dreams of Flight

On April 9, 2012 · In Bio-mimicry, History

Since the early days of human intelligence the dream of flying and the idea that we are not alone in this universe has possessed the human mind. In the second century AD the Greek writer Lucian describes a trip to the moon in his book Vera Historia, in which Lucian’s ship is caught in a […]

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Bio-mimetic Drag Reduction – Part 3: Morphing

On April 5, 2012 · In Aerodynamics, Bio-mimicry

In the previous two posts of this blog series I introduced the different sensing mechanism that aquatic animals possess to create spatial images of the largely turbulent flow fields around them. Flow sensing has been shown to […]

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Bio-mimetic Drag Reduction – Part 2: Aero- and Hydrodynamics

On March 31, 2012 · In Aerodynamics, Bio-mimicry

Part 1 of this blog series outlined the different sensing mechanisms that aquatic animals possess to create spatial images of the flow fields around them. In summary fish were found to possess a network of mechanosensors distributed over their bodies called the lateral line. The lateral line […]

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Bio-mimetic Drag Reduction – Part 1: Sensing

On March 27, 2012 · In Bio-mimicry

Fish have a remarkable ability to sense the flow conditions around their bodies and subsequently manipulate their swimming behaviour to achieve efficient locomotion [1 – 2]. It has been observed that dolphins and sharks use a network of mechanosensors on their skin to create a spatial image of the flow around them and […]

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