FLOW paper published in Physical Review Letters (March 2012)
The paper 'Spontaneous symmetry breaking of a hinged flapping filament generates lift' by Bagheri, Mazzino & Bottaro, has been published in Physical Review Letters
( link ).
Abstract:
Elastic filamentous structures found on swimming and flying organisms are versatile in function, rendering their precise contribution to locomotion difficult to assess. We show in this Letter that a single passive filament hinged on the rear of a bluff body placed in a stream can generate a net lift force without increasing the mean drag force on the body. This is a consequence of spontaneous symmetry breaking in the filament’s flapping dynamics. The phenomenon is related to a resonance between the frequency associated with the von Kármán vortex street developing behind the bluff body and the natural frequency of the free bending vibrations of the filament.