The small fillets on the owl’s feathers show the way to the low plane noise

A recent research study by Professor Christoph Brucker and his team at City, London University has revealed how micro-structured finalates on owl feathers enable silent flight and show the way forward in reducing aircraft noise in the future.

Professor Brooker is the City’s Royal Academy of Engineering f Engineering Research Chair with Nature-Induced Sensing and Flow Control for Sustainable Transport and Sir Richard Verver BAE Systems Chair for Aeronautical Engineering.

His team has published their findings in the journal Physics, Bionspiration and biomimetics The paper is entitled ‘Flow Turning Effect and Laminar Control by 3-D Curve of Sirius’ Leading Edge of Owl Wing’.

To study the aerobic effect of special fibers on the main edge of pain through their research, RWTH outlines the translation of detailed 3-D geometry data of typical owl feather examples provided by Professor Hermann Wagner at Aachen University (Germany). .

The results show that these formations rotate the direction of flow consistently near the epileptic wall and keep the flow longer and with greater stability, avoiding instability.

The City Research team was inspired by the intricate 3-D geometry of the front extensions of owl feathers – Professor Wagner and his team reconstructed previous studies using high-resolution micro-CT scans.

After being transferred to a digitally shaped model, the flow similarities around those structures (using the calculated fluid dynamics) clearly indicate the aerodynamic function of this extension as the phenolite, which coincides with the direction of flow.

This effect is known to stabilize the flow on the swollen wing aerofoil, which is typical for an owl when its wings flutter and glide.

Using flow studies in water tunnels, Professor Brookecker also proved the hypothesis of flow-curve in experiments with the extended fenet model.

To his team’s surprise, instead of producing vartisis, the phenols act as a thin guide wine due to their special 3-D curve. The regular array of such fillets on the wing span therefore easily and consistently rotates the direction of flow near the wall.

The team plans to use the technical realization of such a swept wing aerofoil pattern in the Anikoik wind-tunnel for further acoustic tests. The result of this research will be important for the design of the future laminar wing and is likely to reduce the noise of the aircraft.