Tumbling Dynamics of Passive Flexible Wings
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Author(s) • • •
Tam, Daniel
Bush, John W. M.
Robitalle, Michael
Arshad, Kudrolli
Date Issued
May 2010
Journal
Physical Review Letters
Publisher
American Physical Society
Citation
Tam, Daniel, et al. "Tumbling Dynamics of Passive Flexible Wings." Physical Review Letters 104.18 (2010): 184504. © 2010 The American Physical Society
Version
Final published version
Abstract
The influence of flexibility on the flight of autorotating winged seedpods is examined through an experimental investigation of tumbling rectangular paper strips freely falling in air. Our results suggest the existence of a critical length above which the wing bends. We develop a theoretical model that demonstrates that this buckling is prompted by inertial forces associated with the tumbling motion, and yields a buckling criterion consistent with that observed. We further develop a reduced model for the flight dynamics of flexible tumbling wings that illustrates the effect of aeroelastic coupling on flight characteristics and rationalizes experimentally observed variations in the wing’s falling speed and range.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mathematics
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.104.184504