Spinning Flight: Dynamics of Frisbees, Boomerangs, Samaras, and Skipping Stones - Softcover

Lorenz, Ralph D.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1441921532 ISBN 13: 9781441921536

Verlag: Springer, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

More Frisbees are sold each year than baseballs, basketballs and footballs combined. Yet Frisbees have subtle and clever aerodynamic and gyrodynamic properties which are only recently being documented by wind tunnel and other studies. There are few books which discuss items like boomerangs and Frisbees and this is the first to give detailed technical discussion of these topics. In common with other rotating bodies discussed in this readily accessible book, these subjects are typically not treated in textbooks of aeronautics and the literature is scattered in a variety of places. This book develops the theme of disc-wings and spinning aerospace vehicles in parallel. Since many of the examples are recreational, anyone who enjoys these activities will likely find it profitable and enjoyable.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Dr Ralph Lorenz trained as an engineer (B.Eng. Aerospace Systems Engineering, Southampton 1990) and worked for a year for the European Space Agency ESA on the design of the Huygens probe and its instruments. He then spent three years obtaining a PhD at the University of Kent at Canterbury building part of the Surface Science Package which measured Titan's surface properties in January 2005. In 1994 he moved to the University of Arizona for postdoctoral research, where his interests have included Titan, Mars, climate, nonequilibrium thermodynamics and instrumentation. He continues these researches as a member of the Senior Professional Staff at the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University, where he moved in August 2006. Relevant to the present book, he has published several papers on dust devils, surface modification processes, and Aeolian processes - most recently reporting the discovery of massive fields of sand dues on Titan. Lorenz has written over 100 papers in rherefereed literature and over 20 polular articls in magazines such as Spaceflight, Astronomy Now and New Scientist. James Zimbelman has been a Geologist at the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C for nearly 20 years. His principal interest is Planetary Geology - Geologic analysis of remote sensing data of Mars, geologic mapping of Mars and Venus, study of long lava flows on the terrestrial planets and field studies of volcanic, aeolian and pluvial features. He has published over 50 peer-reviewed papers and maps and several hundred abstracts

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More frisbees are sold each year than baseballs, basketballs, and footballs combined. Yet these familiar flying objects have subtle and clever aerodynamic and gyrodynamic properties which are only recently being documented by wind tunnel and other studies. In common with other rotating bodies discussed in this readily accessible book, they are typically not treated in textbooks of aeronautics and the literature is scattered in a variety of places.

This book develops the theme of disc-wings and spinning aerospace vehicles in parallel. Many readers will have enjoyed these vehicles and their dynamics in recreational settings, so this book will be of wide interest. In addition to spinning objects of various shapes, several exotic manned aircraft with disc platforms have been proposed and prototypes built - these include a Nazi ‘secret weapon’ and the De Havilland Avrocar, also discussed in the book.

Boomerangs represent another category of spinning aerodynamic body whose behavior can only be understood by coupling aerodynamics with gyrodynamics. The narrative, supported by equations and graphs, explains how the shape and throw of a boomerang relates to its trajectory. The natural world presents still other examples, namely the samaras or ‘seed-wings’ of many tree species, which autorotate during their descent, like a helicopter whose engine has failed.

In short, this book discusses a range of familiar, connected, but largely undeveloped, topics in an accessible, but complete manner. ‘Toys’ familiar to all of us are covered as well as high-tech products of the aerospace industry. Spinning Flight includes not only the latest published results but also describes Lorenz’s own experiments with ‘how-to’ instructions on how readers can do their own experiments.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Springer
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1441921532
• ISBN 13: 9781441921536
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 376
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Springer Nature Customer Service Center GmbH; ProductSafety@springernature.com; ; Europaplatz 3,69115 Heidelberg, Germany; Heidelberg; Deutschland