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Undergraduate Research Project in Mechanical and Ocean Engineering
Undergraduate Research Project in Mechanical and Ocean Engineering
As an undergraduate researcher, I designed an experimental setup for towing tank experiments of an aerial/aquatic wing. This work was inspired by birds that achieve aerial and aquatic propulsion (like murres, puffins, and other auks) with the same set of wings. The mechanical design of this setup allowed for the wing to employ inline motion and spanwise active wing twist to vector the force produced and show experimentally that a wing controlled correctly could enable both aerial and aquatic flight.
This work was the basis of the publications, presentations, and the PhD thesis of my research mentor cited below.
Below: Close up views of the mechanical design of the experimental test wing
Below: Videos of the test setup moving on a desk and in the towing tank
Below: Image from Dye Visualization Experiments
Below: Videos from Dye Visualization experiments, showing a clear, coherent wake and leading and trailing edge vortices.
References:
Izraelevitz, J.S., Kotidis, M., & Triantafyllou, M.S. (2018). Optimized kinematics enable both aerial and aquatic propulsion from a single three-dimensional flapping wing. Physical Review Fluids, Vol 3, Issue 7. Link
Izraelevitz, J.S., Kotidis, M., & Triantafyllou, M.S. (2016). Flapping Wings of an Inclined Stroke Angle: Experiments and Reduced-Order Models in Dual Aerial/Aquatic Flight. Bulletin, American Phys. Society, 61. Link
Jacob Izraelevitz, "Flapping Wings for Dual Aerial and Aquatic Propulsion" PhD diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2017, Mechanical Engineering. Link
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