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ARTICLE SUMMARY

EXCLUSIVE: Owls inspire noiseless aircraft flight

NOISY aircraft could become havens of peace and quiet – thanks to owls.

CLARIFICATION

27.04.09, 9:23am

The article referes to experiments being carried out on owls. This was actually done many years ago, and we are benefiting from this knowledge today. We are not carrying out any owl experiments at the moment with Airbus, see more details below.

Dr Kenji Takeda
University of Southampton

• Posted by: DrKenjiTakeda • Report Comment

AIRBUS RESEARCH AND NOISE REDUCTION FURTHER DETAILS

26.04.09, 12:22pm

I am the researcher consulted on this excellent article about the work we are doing at the University of Southampton with Airbus. I would like to take the chance to include further details for those interested. We have moved on from 'owl' technology as such, and are actually applying more practical solutions to noise reduction.

The owl is an incredible creature, so provides clues to the physics of noise generation. This can help us, but our work is focussed on reducing noise on much larger aircraft, rather than directly copying the owl. This involves coming up with new solutions, sometimes related to nature, but in reality that may look quite different. Scaling up nature's technology and making it practical is not always feasible, but the physical understanding we can gain can be of great use. The real challenge for engineers is to study nature and come up with better solutions. For example, the largest flying bird today weighs around 12kg, the A380 weighs around 460,000 times that!

The landing gear noise work described uses carbon-fiber/metal fairings, not feathers (as one might infer from the article), to control the turbuelnt airflow around the wheels and struts. Our computer simulations and wind tunnel experiments are on this applied technology, not of birds themselves. This is what was tested on the EU Silencer research programme.

What the owl shows us is that it is possible to create a silent flying 'vehicle'. The industry and academia are working tirelessly to try and achieve this, and this is what we hope the article highlights.

Find out more at www.soton.ac.uk/ses/antc

Dr Kenji Takeda
University of Southampton

• Posted by: DrKenjiTakeda • Report Comment

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AMAZING, IT IS.

26.04.09, 12:21pm

We are constantly learning new lessons from nature in the form of animals and plants. They have been with us for millions of years and we are now only scraping the surface of what future technology that nature can give us if only we are bothered to look for it.

All too often though, it takes a war or something to get the grey cells of the boffins working.

• Posted by: Harveymiff • Report Comment

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