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AEM Seminar: Bio Inspired Morphing

Daniel Inman, Clarence "Kelly" Johnson Professor; Professor, Aerospace Engineering; Department Chair Aerospace Engineering; University of Michigan

2:30 PM on 2018-11-30


Abstract:

The aerodynamics and control that birds using in gliding results in efficiencies in performance not yet realized by traditional winged aircraft. With the advent of smart, multifunctional composites, it is now possible to implement motions inspired by avian gliding in small, unmanned air vehicles (UAV). Initially motivated by the casual observation of flight control motions made by birds, morphing research has proceeded with only limited understanding of how and why birds use their aerodynamic surfaces for flight control. In addition, previous research has not made use of the full spectrum of active materials. Avian biology suffers from the inability to perform controlled experiments while mechanical versions of bird motions cannot respond with the level of control exhibited by nature. Thus the interplay between the engineering and biology should help both fields advance. A summary of relevant previous results from two fields: avian biology and morphing aircraft, is presented followed by current results on morphing trailing edge research and rudderless yaw control for UAV sized aircraft.

Bio:

Daniel J. Inman received his Ph.D. from Michigan State University in Mechanical Engineering in 1980 and is the C. L. “Kelly” Johnson Collegiate Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan. Since 1980, he has published eight books (on vibration, energy harvesting, control, statics, and dynamics), eight software manuals, 20 book chapters, over 350 journal papers and 600 proceedings papers, given 65 keynote or plenary lectures, graduated 64 Ph.D. students and supervised more than 75 MS degrees. He works in the area of applying smart structures to solve aerospace engineering problems including energy harvesting, structural health monitoring, vibration suppression and morphing aircraft. He is a Fellow of AIAA, ASME, IIAV, SEM and AAM.


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