Silent planes on owl's wings. Free Technical Library News

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Silent planes on owl wings

08.12.2012

Researchers from the University of Cambridge studied the quietness of an owl. Their work opens up new possibilities for reducing aircraft noise.

Owls have an "uncanny" ability to fly silently with the help of special wing plumage. Scientists have carefully studied the structure of the owl's wings in order to better understand how this invention of nature can be applied to modern aircraft.

All wings, natural or artificial, create turbulent eddies that amplify at the trailing edge and dissipate as sound waves. Conventional aircraft with rigid trailing edges create a lot of noise because of this. Scientists have long assumed that at least three different factors are responsible for the silent flight of an owl: stiff feathers along the leading edge of the wing, soft down on the upper part of the wing, and a fringe of feathers on the trailing edge of the wing. These features allow you to effectively eliminate aerodynamic noise from the wings, better hear prey and hunt successfully.

Until now, it was not known whether all three "owl factors" are needed to reduce noise, or just one is sufficient. British scientists tried to answer this question by developing a theoretical model that describes the ability of an owl to reduce the sound of the trailing edge of the wing. Prior to this, experiments have shown that owl wing noise is weakly dependent on airflow speed, with the greatest reduction in noise occurring in the high frequency range, to which the human ear is most sensitive.

Using mathematical models, British researchers found that a resilient and porous wing trailing edge can significantly reduce aerodynamic noise at certain flight speeds. This means that there is an opportunity to make passenger airliners quieter, and drones almost silent.

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