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Old 01-26-2008, 04:19 PM   #1 (permalink)
aerohead
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Half a billion years of streamlining

Hello all. For years,I've used the work of the Lillianthal Bros.,Gustav Eiffel,Paul Jaray,etc.,as examples of aero-pioneers,when doing public exhibits on aerodynamics and fuel economy. I have also used fish,marine mammals,shark,and birds to demonstrate" Nature's" design solutions for fluid-dynamic challenges.

After reading "More With Less", about Dr.Paul MacCready of Aerovironment, and his teams which gave us man-powered flight and Solaraycer, to name just a few of their accomplishments, I was introduced to the term "biomimicry", a term used by team members to describe how they observed, and looked to nature for clues for how to overcome physical challenges to moving within our atmosphere or waters.

Digging in a little, I've come to learn that our birds date to the Jurassic Period, about 150-million years ago, and fish, to the Devonian Period, about 400-million years ago, and "proto-fish", with all the streamlining efficiency of today's modern fish, to perhaps a half-billion years ago.

The HONDA Dream solar champion ,with Cd0.10, and 400-mpg potential, borrows heavily from Aerovironment's Solaraycer, which itself was modelled after a pumpkin seed.

NASA has been able to create the efficiency of the 150-million-year-old blue-fin tuna,the most streamlined shape in existence.

Peregrine falcons stoop at over 230-mph terminal velocity. Needletail swifts bound through the skies in level flight at over 200-mph. Ocean prey do their best to evade the clutches of fast swimming mako shark, bottlenose dolphin,emperor penguin,leopard seal,and the like.

Atomic submarines have come to embrace the tuna in their exemplery hydrodynamic forms. Canoe and kayak owe their amazing abilities to organic forms.

As carmakers look to the challenges of higher fuel economy,cleaner air,and lower CO2 footprints,they need only look to the heavens or under the waves for the solutions which await them along their line of sight.You as members of ecomodder needn't wait though,as no lenders, committies,shareholder proxies ,nor sales directors,limit your access to nature's forms.You have only the nuts and the bolts of it in your way.

So look up,look down.It's all the same in nature.The forms just keep repeating themselves.And if you're ever over-takin on the road by a four-wheeled tuna,its probably just some nut like me,who bothered to look around . Get you a shop,get out there, tear it up good,be safe,have fun,save fuel. I'll be taking my own advice.

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