Owls have a lot going for them: good looks, great eyesight, and the power of nearly silent flight.
That last characteristic got engineers thinking, what if it were possible to impart Mother Nature’s design for silent owl wings into things like wind turbines, allowing them to quietly operate at higher speeds and generate megawatts of additional power?
Researchers at the University of Cambridge say they’ve taken some good steps toward doing just that, announcing this week their design for a new coating material that mimics the complex structure of an owl’s wing.
“No other bird has this sort of intricate wing structure,” said lead researcher Nigel Peake, in a news release. “Much of the noise caused by a wing - whether it’s attached to a bird, a plane or a fan - originates at the trailing edge where the air passing over the wing surface is turbulent. The structure of an owl’s wing serves to reduce noise by smoothing the passage of air as it passes over the wing - scattering the sound so their prey can’t hear them coming.”
To replicate the trailing-edge structure scientists looked a variety of designs, including covering wind turbines with a material that’s similar to that used in wedding veils. They also created a 3-D printed plastic material which, in tests, reduced noise generated by turbine blades by 10 decibels.
The findings were presented today at the 21st American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Aeroacoustics Conference in Dallas.
(Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
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