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Updated: Apr 15, 2026

Uncoupling Coriolis Force and Rotating Buoyancy Effects on Full-Field Heat Transfer Properties of a Rotating Channel
Published on: October 5, 2018
Coriolis effects enhance lift on revolving wings
1Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace, University of Toulouse, 10 Avenue Edouard-Belin, Toulouse 31055, France.
Abstract:
At high angles of attack, an aircraft wing stalls. This dreaded event is characterized by the development of a leading edge vortex on the upper surface of the wing, followed by its shedding which causes a drastic drop in the aerodynamic lift. At similar angles of attack, the leading edge vortex on an insect wing or an autorotating seed membrane remains robustly attached, ensuring high sustained lift. What are the mechanisms responsible for both leading edge vortex attachment and high lift generation on revolving wings? We review the three main hypotheses that attempt to explain this specificity and, using direct numerical simulations of the Navier-Stokes equations, we show that the latter originates in Coriolis effects.
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