Silent air vehicles for transport and defense have been identified as an area of national need in the U.S. in a bid to cut noise pollution and加强军事情报。在the wild, owls are perhaps one of the best examples of natural stealth and aerial agility, giving researchers a promising area for potential development.
在spired by the wing structure of the common barn owl, Professor Anupam Sharma, the Walter W. Wilson Faculty Fellow of Aerospace Engineering at Iowa State University, is leading a project to impact the design of next generation airplanes and wind turbines, with the help of 3D printing.
Implementing the “owl hush kit”
沉默飞行中的谷仓猫头鹰的现象是由翅膀上的羽毛的品种和排列来解释。
大羽毛形状和锯齿状，梳子柔韧边缘，这意味着在飞过空气时容易分散空气。羽毛是天鹅绒般的触摸，允许它们吸收噪声频率，与地毯相同。140厘米的平均翅膀也意味着谷仓猫头鹰可以进一步越来越少拍打翅膀 - 引起声音的主要罪魁祸首。
All of these features have been named by Professor Sharma as the “owl hush kit”. To better understand all of the sound-dulling of the owl hush kit, the team at Iowa State are making use ofArgonne National Laboratory’s IBM Mira supercomputerto record the fractional movements of wings and their reactions under pressure.
Is a silent airfoil possible?
在一项研究由Sharma教授和第23号AIAA / CEAS空气声学会议的员工介绍，如谷仓猫头鹰翅膀中发现的锯齿，被添加到3D可打印翼型的设计中。与标准翼基线相比，该设计显着降低了噪声。Finlets是一种基于羽毛结构的表面模型，也表现出显着的减少，为进一步研究做出了一个有希望的案例。
A future of a bioinspired design
生物启发是迎来了一股新的设计概念有效地塑造未来时尚那电子设备and建筑学。As Professor Sharma解释“我们的方法是生物启发，而不是生物模仿，我们的设计看起来不会像猫头鹰翅膀。”
“我们正在研究猫头鹰沉默飞行后面的物理机制。然后，我们正在通过猫头鹰翅膀的简化几何形状，并将那些飞机翅膀应用于飞机翼，喷射发动机和风力涡轮机的转子叶片。“
该项目，Ultra Quiet Aircraft Propulsion Inspired by the Unique Plumage of the Owl那由国家科学基金会获得500,000美元的职业生涯资助，从爱荷华州的IOWA Space Grant Consortium获得100,000美元，支持Sharma教授和航空航天工程学生：安德鲁·布尔陵，Bharat Agrawal和Vishal Vijay。
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Featured image shows a barn owl in flight. Photo by Pete Whieldon
