The next wind turbine engine is getting modeled after owl wings. The reason? They are uncannily quiet. Researchers are considering these designs and are figuring out how to do it.

"Owls possess no fewer than three distinct physical attributes that are thought to contribute to their silent flight capability," said Justin Jaworski, whose Mechanical Engineering group at Lehigh University investigates the properties of owl stealth, and is presenting its research at this year's APS Fluid Dynamics meeting in Pittsburgh, PA. "A comb of stiff feathers along the leading edge of the wing; a flexible fringe a the trailing edge of the wing; and a soft, downy material distributed on the top of the wing."

The three features put together allow owls to fly almost silently.

"If the noise-reduction mechanism of the owl down can be established, there may be far-reaching implications to the design of novel sound-absorbing liners, the use of flexible roughness to affect trailing-edge noise and vibrations for aircraft and wind turbines, and the mitigation of underwater noise from naval vessels."

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[APS Physics]