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We need to have a talk about aerodynamics. This is from “How It Works” magazine.. but this is never going to work.pic.twitter.com/UYp7LAciqY
If you don’t see what I see: imagine either item hanging from an awning, like a shop sign. Any breeze would cause a huge amount of blowing around. Now remove the awning. Those drones as shown are getting dragged around the sky by their payloads - at best.
The thing about aerodynamics is, like my other favorite engineering field (electrical), the way it works is extraordinarily difficult to just visualize, though it seems like it should be straightforward. It can be unintuitive.
Quadcopters - drones with 4 props like that - are popular in part because they can be easily flown with only a very basic feedback-control system that makes these much more tractable than the equivalent programming (to control an airplane or helicopter of the same scale, say)
A lot of what we are doing with drones uses the quadcopter as a jumping-off point, but ignores aerodynamics. There are a lot of 1-lb bumblebees out there, in aerodynamic terms.
(There are even a few 10-, 100- and 1000-lb bumblebee designs buzzing around.. with enough power, anything could get off the ground. But they will all fly for longer and further with just a little thought given to the wings.)
Consider for example, how hard it would be to make your car take to the air. You could floor it, drive it as fast as you wanted - and it would still fly quite poorly. But with wings added, this all changes. It’s aerodynamics, not power, that matter.
I still feel somewhat responsible for the prevalence of the “Drone brings you stuff” idea, so please consider this thread as sponsored by TacoCopter. I leave you with my so far all-time favorite tweet:https://mobile.twitter.com/GreatDismal/status/185092120376393729 …
How It Couldn't Possibly End Up Working Magazine
What, no anvil?
STOP CONFUSING THE MAKER KIDS SUPPOSED TO SWALLOW STARTUP KOOL-AID: "ALL YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE (IF YOU JUST PITCH TO CAPITALISTS SUCCESSFULLY)" WITH YOUR TECHNICAL DETAILS BASED ON AN ACTUAL PILOT'S LICENSE!!!11!!1!
I dunno, they're both pretty aero/hydrodynamic things. Brown paper maybe not so good though :-)
Being "pretty aerodymamic" doesn't help if your angle of attack is wrong, though. Even aeroplanes will stall if that happens. Surfboards are only designed to be hydrodynamically stable around one axis, the other two use buoyancy. Bicycles are stabilized by rolling.
Since the quadcopter is providing lift and thrust, and can move equally in all axes, drag coefficient is most important. Both a bicycle and a surf board are low drag. It's not ideal but I guess my point is that a more typical box /could/ potentially be even worse.
That's not how aerodynamics work. Which was the original point so I assume you're just not paying attention to anyone but yourself. Preconceptions are great, huh?
You mentioned angle of attack and stall: Both relevant to aerofoils, but not relevant to passive loads. Aerodynamics encompasses a wide range of effects & drag coefficient is the most important factor here. "...not paying attention to anyone but yourself." - right back at you
If angle of attack and stall are what defines an aerofoil, everything becomes an aerofoil if it's moving through air at sufficient relative velocity. Bicycles, surfboards, my kitchen stove, even a perfectly spherical ball if you apply a periodic component to it's orientation.
A near symmetrical item at near zero angle of attack is not acting as an aerofoil in a substantial way though, so in that case drag coefficient is going to be the primary influence on performance.
Look up on your own time: laminar flow, turbulent flow, vortex shedding, rotational symmetry.
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