Hovering of a rigid pyramid in an oscillatory airflow

Annie Weathers; Brendan Folie; Bin Liu; Stephen Childress; Jun Zhang

doi:10.1017/S0022112010000583

Hovering of a rigid pyramid in an oscillatory airflow

Annie Weathers, Brendan Folie, Bin Liu, Stephen Childress, Jun Zhang

Mathematics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

We investigate the dynamics of rigid bodies (hollow pyramids) placed within a background airflow, oscillating with zero mean. The asymmetry of the body introduces a net upward force. We find that when the amplitude of the airflow is above a threshold, the net lift exceeds the weight and the object starts to hover. Our results show that the objects hover at far smaller air amplitudes than would be required by a quasi-steady theory, although this theory accounts qualitatively for the behaviour of the system as the body mass becomes small.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	415-425
Number of pages	11
Journal	Journal of Fluid Mechanics
Volume	650
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022112010000583
State	Published - May 10 2010

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Condensed Matter Physics
Mechanics of Materials
Mechanical Engineering
Applied Mathematics

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10.1017/S0022112010000583

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title = "Hovering of a rigid pyramid in an oscillatory airflow",

abstract = "We investigate the dynamics of rigid bodies (hollow pyramids) placed within a background airflow, oscillating with zero mean. The asymmetry of the body introduces a net upward force. We find that when the amplitude of the airflow is above a threshold, the net lift exceeds the weight and the object starts to hover. Our results show that the objects hover at far smaller air amplitudes than would be required by a quasi-steady theory, although this theory accounts qualitatively for the behaviour of the system as the body mass becomes small.",

author = "Annie Weathers and Brendan Folie and Bin Liu and Stephen Childress and Jun Zhang",

note = "Funding Information: We thank helpful discussions with S. Spagnolie. This work is supported by DOE (DE-FG02-88ER25053) and NSF (DMS-0507615, DMS-0821520).",

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AU - Weathers, Annie

AU - Folie, Brendan

AU - Liu, Bin

AU - Childress, Stephen

AU - Zhang, Jun

N1 - Funding Information: We thank helpful discussions with S. Spagnolie. This work is supported by DOE (DE-FG02-88ER25053) and NSF (DMS-0507615, DMS-0821520).

PY - 2010/5/10

Y1 - 2010/5/10

N2 - We investigate the dynamics of rigid bodies (hollow pyramids) placed within a background airflow, oscillating with zero mean. The asymmetry of the body introduces a net upward force. We find that when the amplitude of the airflow is above a threshold, the net lift exceeds the weight and the object starts to hover. Our results show that the objects hover at far smaller air amplitudes than would be required by a quasi-steady theory, although this theory accounts qualitatively for the behaviour of the system as the body mass becomes small.

AB - We investigate the dynamics of rigid bodies (hollow pyramids) placed within a background airflow, oscillating with zero mean. The asymmetry of the body introduces a net upward force. We find that when the amplitude of the airflow is above a threshold, the net lift exceeds the weight and the object starts to hover. Our results show that the objects hover at far smaller air amplitudes than would be required by a quasi-steady theory, although this theory accounts qualitatively for the behaviour of the system as the body mass becomes small.

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Hovering of a rigid pyramid in an oscillatory airflow

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