Bird flight is an area of significant interest due to the utilization and control of unsteady aerodynamic effects via flapping. Although modern aerodynamics were originally inspired by bird flight, contemporary computational and experimental work associated with flapping flight focuses on insect flight. The purpose of the present paper is to improve the understanding of avian flight by investig...

Ever since his earliest times, man must have dreamed of copying the birds; of flying, of gaining mastery over the third dimension of space. The earliest practicable route to achieve the aim of flying was in the use of balloons. The first balloons were hot-air balloons; they relied on the lower density of hot air, compared to that of the surrounding air, to obtain the lift they needed. Balloons ...

A two-dimensional Newton–Krylov aerodynamic shape optimization algorithm is applied to several optimization problems in which the location of laminar-turbulent transition is free. The coupled Euler and boundary-layer solver MSES is used to obtain transition locations through the e method, which are then used in Optima2D, a Newton–Krylov discrete-adjoint optimization algorithm based on the compr...

Bio-logging tags are an important tool for the study of cetaceans, but superficial tags inevitably increase hydrodynamic loading. Substantial forces can be generated by tags on fast-swimming animals, potentially affecting behavior and energetics or promoting early tag removal. Streamlined forms have been used to reduce loading, but these designs can accelerate flow over the top of the tag. This...

A multi-component airfoil design procedure is presented. It is based on a multi-objective genetic optimizer coupled with a boundary layer flow field solver capable of working in high-lift conditions. Examples of unconstrained and constrained lift coefficient maximization are reported.

on a finsler manifold, we define conformal vector fields and their complete lifts and prove that incertain conditions they are homothetic.

A gradient-based Newton–Krylov algorithm for aerodynamic shape optimization is applied to lift maximization of a multi-element landing configuration. The governing flow equations are the two-dimensional compressible Navier–Stokes equations in conjunction with a one-equation transport turbulence model. The objective function gradient is computed via the discrete-adjoint method. The design exampl...