Feather-inspired flaps on model wing deployed in response to air flow inside wind tunnel (IMAGE)

Princeton University, Engineering School

Feather-inspired flaps on model wing deployed in response to air flow inside wind tunnel

Caption

Researchers attached covert feather-inspired flaps to a 3D-printed model airplane wing and mounted it in a wind tunnel to explore the role of covert feathers in bird flight. By precisely measuring how air interacts with the wing and the flaps, they uncovered the physics by which the flaps improved lift and identified two ways that the flaps control air moving around the wing.

Credit

Princeton University/Lori Nichols

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