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Should airplanes look like birds? Engineers envision more fuel-efficient design
PhysOrg ^ | November 21, 2010 | Unknown

Posted on 11/21/2010 4:41:47 PM PST by decimon

Airplanes do not look much like birds -- unless you were to imagine a really weird bird or a very strange plane -- but should they? This question is exactly what a pair of engineers in California and South Africa inadvertently answered recently when they set about re-thinking the ubiquitous tube-and-wings aircraft architecture from scratch in order to make airplanes more fuel efficient.

The modern airplane design works well, but from a fuel efficiency standpoint, could planes be designed more aerodynamically -- to lower drag and increase lift? Geoffrey Spedding, an engineer at the University of Southern California, and Joachim Huyssen at Northwest University in South Africa, felt they could in theory, but they lacked experimental evidence. Now they have it.

Spedding and Huyssen have made a simple modular aircraft in three configurations: a flying wing alone, then wings plus body, and then wings plus body and a tail. It turns out that they had independently re-designed a bird shape, but without specific reference to anything bird-like. They will present their experimental data with these three designs, today at the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics meeting in Long Beach, CA.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Science
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To: decimon
I've already designed an airplane shaped like a bird. Take a domestic turkey, strap a GE J79 engine on it and whoosh! Of it goes into the wild blue yonder. As God is my witness, now turkeys can fly.

If two J79s can power an F-4, it should only take one for a turkey.

21 posted on 11/21/2010 7:29:01 PM PST by KarlInOhio (Dems' response to 11/2: Do not go gentle into that new day,Rage,rage against the coming of the dawn!)
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To: KarlInOhio

Hate to think what your wind tunnel must look like.


22 posted on 11/21/2010 7:34:31 PM PST by decimon
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To: decimon

Do they refer to that as an Aardvark? It figures that I would pull out a name randomly and have it turn out to be a real reference...;-)


23 posted on 11/22/2010 6:52:02 AM PST by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: rockrr
Do they refer to that as an Aardvark?

I read that the Australians referred to their F-111s as Aardvarks.

24 posted on 11/22/2010 6:58:55 AM PST by decimon
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To: decimon

siiighhhhhh.... a lot of the responses on this thread are lamentably predictable...


25 posted on 11/22/2010 6:59:03 AM PST by r9etb
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To: aruanan; Tucker39
Do you mean epitome?

No.... I'm sure he meant "epidome."

"Epi" from the Greek for "upon;" and "dome" as in "bubble."

So birds would be "on the bubble" of aerodynamic styling.

;-)

26 posted on 11/22/2010 7:04:17 AM PST by r9etb
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To: r9etb
siiighhhhhh.... a lot of the responses on this thread are lamentably predictable...

Knew you'd say that.

27 posted on 11/22/2010 7:37:59 AM PST by decimon
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To: decimon

:-P pthpbpbpbpbpbp


28 posted on 11/22/2010 8:11:45 AM PST by r9etb
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To: sinsofsolarempirefan
"dependence on the Saudi Arabs" is a decision determined in Congress and the Senate. We can produce all we need from our continental resources if we choose to do so.

Of course we will be expected to contribute substantial foreign aid in the form of cash to the Muslim Muslum Saudi Arabs. It helps tremendously when you have your first cousin in the White House.

29 posted on 11/22/2010 10:47:07 AM PST by B4Ranch (Conflict is inevitable; Combat is an option. Train for the fight.)
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