Wind tunnel testing of a novel wingsuit design
Name
Berry-2010-Wind tunnel testing.pdf
Size
542.4 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
6d2903030487cf15aa8128922834a2df
Author(s)
Blair, Kim B.
Berry, Michael S.
Las Fargeas, Jonathan C.
Date Issued
June 2010
Journal
Procedia Engineering
Publisher
Elsevier
Citation
Berry, Michael, Jonathan Las Fargeas, and Kim B. Blair. “Wind Tunnel Testing of a Novel Wingsuit Design.” Procedia Engineering 2, no. 2 (June 2010): 2735–2740.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
A wingsuit is a special suit that is worn to allow the user to fly after jumping off of a high cliff. The wingsuit creates an airfoil shape by adding wings of material between the arms and the sides as well as a tail consisting of material between the legs. The wingsuit allows for the creation of lift and thus human flying. A new and novel wingsuit design is proposed based on the design of a delta wing aircraft. This new wingsuit has material leading from the side of the head and connecting to the top of the arms, extending the area of the forward wing. Using a mannequin in a wind tunnel, the aerodynamic performance of the new wingsuit will be measured and compared to that of the current wingsuit design. The results show that the redesigned wingsuit had a lower lift-to-drag ratio in most testing scenarios. The decrease in lift-to-drag ratio was due to the combination of an increased lift and a higher increased drag.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.proeng.2010.04.059
