Group motion is a common form of manuver in nature and is observed especially among swimmers and flyers such as pelicans, pigeons, fish, and, spiny shrimps. Group motion has been the inspiration behind the development of formation flight, as well as many drafting techniques used in sports. However, most of the decvelopment in this area is limited to the case of lifting bodies for fixed-wind aircraft and less attention has been given to vehicles with non-lifting components. In addition, limitations of the conventional PIV techniques restricts access to high-resolution details of flow around arrangements of bodies, such as low resuolution access to large areas of the wakes, and limited to no access to the inteoir of the arrays.
In this work, we use multi-light sheet PIV, and 2D consecutive-overlapping imaging to get high resolution velocity measurements around arrangements of bodies. For example, for a V-formation of non-lifting bodies, we can show benefits of narrow formations when members of each echelon have overlaps in their streamwise projections. We also see benefits experienced by the interoir members of the array which is comparable to the physiological benefits reported in formation flights of pelicans.
For more information:
- . “Impact of bio-inspired V-formation on flow past arrangements of non-lifting objects”. Physics of Fluids, 2023/2024, 36(1), 011909.