The BAM lab Princeton University is growing and thriving. Can't wait to experience and enjoy the journey of each of these scholars!

Our latest review paper of aerial and aquatic flow control is out! This paper is so special because most of the BAM lab team worked on it together 💪 . Thanks Ahmed K. Othman for leading the effort! nature.com/articles/s4417…

A new review article in @commseng from the group of Aimy Wissa gives an overview of flow control strategies used by birds, insects and aquatic animals and their adoption in engineered structures. nature.com/articles/s4417… Ahmed K. Othman DIAA ZEKRY Valeria Saro-Cortes Paul Lee

New paper 📢published in Bioinspiration & Biomimetics with my student DIAA ZEKRY Princeton University , and our collaborators at Toyota Research Institute of North America (TRINA) #Toyota (DOI:10.1088/1748-3190/acdb1d) A thread 🧵

1/n In this paper, we are taking inspiration from birds' covert feathers to design flight control effectors for tailless aerial vehicles.

2/n Coverts are contour feathers on bird wings’ upper and lower surfaces. The interaction between upper and lower surface coverts has not been examined, even though bird flight observations show that upper and lower covert feathers deploy simultaneously.

3/n Results from our wind tunnel experiments show that deploying upper and lower surface coverts simultaneously increases our control over the lift, drag, and pitching moment compared to any single surface configuration.

4/n Our data-driven models show that interaction between the upper and lower surface covert-inspired flaps is important when estimating the aerodynamic response, especially during post-stall conditions.

5/n Carefully designed bioinspired experiments are POWERFUL! They allow us to study things that are hard to isolate in nature. For example, we found that the lift is most sensitive to the lower surface flap location, while drag is most sensitive to the flaps' deflection angle.

6/n In the paper, we compare our findings to trends of covert feathers deployment in nature, and they match! 👉We can use our approach to design new bioinspired flight control devices for UAVs AND test hypotheses about covert feathers deployment during bird flight #exciting!!

7/n Thanks to @PrincetonEng and PrincetonMAE for the article feature (mae.princeton.edu/about-mae/news…) and to TRINA for supporting this work. TRINA’s team uses these covert-inspired flaps to control an aerial wind energy harvesting inflatable kite as a part of their Mothership project!

Our new lab is now up and running. We are still putting the final touches, but it is these incredible scientists who truly bring the lab to life!! (Missing DIAA ZEKRY, he is on an internship this summer) Photo Credit: Aaron Nathans

Another day at #APSDFD2023! Today is all about BIRDS! BAM lab is presenting work on feather-inspired flow and flight control. If you are at DFD, stop by sessions L04 and T10 🪶 🦜. Come see Ahmed K. Othman, Girguis Sedky, Diaa, and Hannah in action!!

Spreading cheer from the BAM Lab to everyone. Happy Holidays :D