Nature-Inspired Inventions · Volume 006
Albatrosses
Long-Endurance Soaring Gliders
A wandering albatross has the longest wingspan of any living bird, commonly around three metres. It spends most of its life over the open Southern Ocean, travelling thousands of kilometres on foraging trips that can last days or weeks. For much of that time it barely flaps. It glides low over the waves in long, swooping arcs, climbing into the wind, turning, and diving downwind, extracting energy from the air itself.
- Price
- $6.99
- Format
- PDF ebook
- Length
- 34 pages
- Edition
- First Edition
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Inside this volume
- Introduction: Flying Without Flapping
- How Albatrosses Fly
- Anatomy of an Endurance Flyer
- Glide Performance and Dynamic Soaring
- A History of Soaring Flight
- Translating Albatross Flight Into Engineering
- Structures for Long, Slender Wings
- Sensing and Control for Soaring
- Ten Albatross-Inspired Design Concepts
- Testing Endurance Designs
- Failure Modes and Limitations
- Approval, Intellectual Property and Market
- Design Workbook
- Case Study — An Ocean-Monitoring Soaring Drone
Plus appendices of formulas and rules of thumb, common reader questions, a glossary and further reading.
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