The Engineering behind paper planes
It is a known fact that scientific principles do not just inhabit our textbooks and lectures, they also find their place within various constructions present in the universe. As expressed by Nikola Tesla, “Every living being is an engine geared to the wheelwork of the universe. Though seemingly affected only by its immediate surroundings, the sphere of external influence extends to infinite distance.”, while we humans do remain engines geared to the wheelwork of the universe, our capability to create has led us to create innovations geared to the wheelwork of human imagination.
One of them is the Paper Airplane, a plaything, a metaphor for a fun-filled and joyful childhood. To imagine that something with no external attachments, just being made out of a single thing, still has engineering principles applied to it that can lead to development in the engineering and mechanics of advanced and higher-class airborne vehicles is positively surprising.
Recently, U.S. National Science Foundation grantee researchers at New York University conducted a series of experiments using paper planes whose conclusions could influence the development of drones. The team’s research was published in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics.
The main quality of paper planes is their ability to glide smoothly. The scientist on the team questioned the factors that gave paper planes a smooth, even glide. While studying this, they discovered that the aerodynamics behind how paper planes keep level flights are very different compared to the aerodynamics behind conventional airborne vehicles. They discovered that paper planes are influenced mainly by gravity and construction to successfully glide. The team also found out that there is no concrete mathematical model for predicting the subtle, gliding flight of paper aeroplanes. Paper planes are simple in design and composition, yet involve surprisingly complicated engineering behind their flight.
To find out the above results, the researchers experimented with launching paper planes with different centres of mass and observed their descent to develop a new aerodynamic model and a flight simulator that replicates the flight motions of a common paper aeroplane.
The final results said that a successful glider was due to a perfectly aligned centre of mass. This is achieved in paper planes by folding, adding paper clips or modifying the cut of paper used. The location of the centre of the pressure changes according to the angle of flight. Within a paper aeroplane, this ensures stability during gliding. In contrast, the centre of pressure in traditional aircraft wings stays fixed in place across all angles of flight. The researchers finally concluded that the shift in the centre of pressure is a unique property of airborne vehicles with thin, flat wings, which enables stable gliding and flight.