2017

Andreas Carlson og Jean Rabault

Nature has invented ingenious aerodynamic design solutions, some of which are critical for plants as wind dispersal of seeds and fruits is coupled to their flight performance. This formulates into an optimization problem for plants: large seed wings can lead to increased lift and more efficient dispersion, but are costly for the tree to build and can more easily be trapped in the canopy. Double winged seeds/fruits separate from their tree when a specific level of dessication is reached, and autorotate as they descend to the ground. This leads to the question: how is the wing curvature of seeds/fruits linked to their flight performance? To answer this, we develop a theoretical model that suggests the existence of an optimal wing curvature that yields maximal lift. To further understand the interplay between the flow and the wing geometry, we perform a synthetic seed adaptation by deploying 3D printing of double winged fruits that we use in flight experiments, where we span the phase space of aerial dynamics by changing the of wing curvature and seed/fruit weight. Experiments confirm that there is a sweet-spot in curvature to maximise the flight time consisted with geometrical measurements from a wide range of seeds in Nature. Our results highlights the importance of not curving too much or too little for helicopter fruits to have an optimal flight performance.

Elisabeth Seland

In my job as research adviser, I receive a lot of questions about rights, possibilities and problems in connection with scientific publishing and open access. Both EU and the Norwegian Research Council have rules about this, and there is also a UiO policy in place that is relevant for all employees. I will give a short presentation to try to clear up what you have to, must, may, could and should related to Open access. In my experience many of you have the same questions about these issues, so I hope you bring your questions with you and we can address them in the seminar.

When and how surface structure determines the dynamics of partial wetting  

Sedimentation-diffusion equilibrium of Quincke rollers  

Iceberg drift on dead water

Reyna Ramirez

Study of the air-flow very close to the surface of wind-generated water waves Marseille large air-water facility

Activity at IFE Wind Energy: numerical modeling of offshore wind turbines

IFE (Institutt for Energiteknikk) is a research center located in Kjeller. The wind group at IFE mainly works with the development and analysis of new cost effective concepts for offshore wind energy, both concerning innovative rotor designs and new concepts for substructures. The group main investigation tool is the in-house software 3DFloat, an aero-elastic code which can simulate the whole wind turbine structure when exposed to the associated environmental loads (wind loads, hydrodynamic loads, soil loads if bottom-fixed).

In the presentation, an insight into the wave kinematics and wave loads modeling tools that are currently included in 3DFloat will be provided.

Bioprocessing of marine and agricultural by-products

Large Eddy Simulation of the interaction of water waves with turbulent air flow