As a flapping object moves through a fluid, many patterns of vortices can form in its wake. The familiar von Karman vortex street, so often seen in clouds or behind cylinders, is Keep reading
Tag: flapping
Hawk Moth Hovering
The hawk moth (Manduca sexta) flies quite similarly to a hummingbird, able to hover over the flowers from which it feeds by rotating its wings as it flaps. This constant Keep reading
Artificial Fins in Tandem
For this image, two artificial fish fins are placed side-by-side and flapped in phase. Flow in the image is upward. The wakes of the fins interact in a complicated vortex Keep reading
Dove in Flight
This spectacular high-speed video shows a dove in flight. Note how its wings flex through its stroke and the way the wings rotate over the course of the downstroke and Keep reading
Pitching Plate Flow Viz
This photograph uses fluorescent dye to visualize the wake behind a rigid flat plate pitching about its leading edge. A vortex is shed from the plate twice in each cycle of oscillation. Keep reading
Airfoil Soap Flow
A flapping airfoil in a vertically flowing soap film produces six vortices per cycle. The vortices form a pattern of two vortex pairs separated by vortex singlets. In the wake Keep reading
Evolving Flight
Flapping wings while running may have helped the evolutionary ancestors of birds develop flight. Experiments with modern birds show that flapping wings while running helps even flight-capable birds ascend slopes Keep reading
Drafting Flags
Wired Science has published a gallery of fluid dynamics photos and videos, several of which have been featured here previously. There’s some neat stuff there, well worth checking out. # Keep reading