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A West Chester University professor has developed a new wind turbine that draws inspiration from a blubbery source: the flippers of a humpback whale. Those knobby flippers were long considered one of the oddities of the sea, found on no other earthly creature.
But after years of study, starting with a whale that washed up on a New Jersey beach, Frank Fish thinks he knows their secret. The bumps cause water to flow over the flippers more smoothly, giving the giant mammal the ability to swim tight circles around its prey.
What works in the ocean seems to work in air. Already a flipperlike prototype is generating energy on Canada’s Prince Edward Island, with twin, bumpy-edged blades knifing through the air. And this summer, an industrial fan company plans to roll out its own whale-inspired model – moving the same amount of air with half the usual number of blades and thus a smaller, energy-saving motor.
Some scientists were sceptical at first, but the concept now has gotten support from independent researchers, most recently some Harvard engineers who wrote up their findings in the respected journal Physical Review Letters…It has all been a bit of a culture shock for Fish, who is more at home in the open world of academia than the more secretive realm of inventions and patents. Two decades ago, his only motivation was to figure out what the bumps were for.
“I sort of found something that’s in plain sight,” he says. “You can look at something again and again, and then you’re seeing it differently.”
A long, thoroughly enjoyable, in-depth article. Read all of it.
Could be a beginning to advancements in technology in wind generation. Cripes – this may be useful in aerofoil design in general.
Again – VERY exciting progress! As someone pointed out earlier, there is no turning back on the quest for alternative energy sources.
As a society, we need to follow through and kick out the current leadership (term used loosely) and bring in new thinkers about how to solve our problems.
“this may be useful in aerofoil design in general.”
I read about this phenomenon years ago. Found a link for ya.
http://tinyurl.com/649rc2
“Random pattern is key. The new reductions in skin friction drag involve the use of a simple aerodynamic surface geometry. Researchers Sture Karlsson, an emeritus professor of engineering at Brown University, and Lawrence Sirovich, director of the applied mathematics laboratory at CUNY/Mt. Sinai in New York, found that a random pattern of small bumps could lower skin friction drag. The size of the bumps, or so-called “chevrons,” is determined by the thickness of the viscous wall layer on the aerodynamic surface, they say. Though the precise size of the chevrons is proprietary, they do describe them as being on the order of a “fraction of a millimeter.”
The real key to the extraordinarily high reductions, however, is not the size of the bumps, but their overall pattern. Sirovich and Karlsson found that the chevron pattern must be random. When using a random pattern, they achieved skin friction drag reductions between 12% and 13%. In contrast, aligned bumps not only failed to lower the drag, they raised it by as much as 20%.”
Isn’t this the same reason why golf balls have dimples?
#3 Yes, similar reason.
#4
And using sports talk is how you can make A TON OF men understand things.
I still prefer science to sports.
You can get these kinds of fins fitted to your wings and propellers now. If you believe the marketing hype, it will increase your airspeed and reduce your stall speed.
Both good things.
I haven’t any experience with them but people I know who use them say they work.
“But after years of study, starting with a whale that washed up on a New Jersey beach, Frank Fish thinks he knows their secret.”
Frank Fish?? Are you kidding me??
They had a similar thing with speedskating a few years back. The dutch showed up with wierd rubber squiggles on the shins and upper arms of their speedsuits. A lot of controversy ensued when it was found to be an aerodynamic enhancer that actually reduced lap times. Its amazing what nature can teach you.