Professor Richard Bomphrey
Professor of Comparative Biomechanics
Department: Comparative Biomedical Sciences
Campus: Hawkshead
Research Centres: Structure & Motion Laboratory
Richard is a Professor of Comparative Biomechanics in the Structure and Motion Laboratory.
Research. Evolutionary biology; functional morphology; animal flight; unsteady aerodynamics; flight performance; sensing; stability and control; fluid-structure interaction. Haemodynamics of abdominal aortic aneurysms.
Teaching. Comparative Animal Locomotion (module leader); The Moving Animal.
Richard joined the RVC in 2013. He read biological sciences at the University of Exeter followed by a DPhil (PhD) in biomechanics at the University of Oxford. After postdoctoral positions in Oxford and the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bath, he was awarded an EPSRC Fellowship in Oxford's Department of Zoology, during which he moved his group to the RVC.
Present and past members of Richard's team include: Nathan Phillips; Jorn Cheney; Hannah Safi; Florence Albert-Davie; Maddie Inglis; Toshiyuki Nakata; Fergus McCorkell; Per Henningsson; Tobias Horstmann; Emily Mistick.
My research sits at the interface of biology and engineering. I use biomechanics as a tool to investigate evolutionary biology and, specifically, how the physical environment determines the morphology and control systems of flying animals. Following the biomimetic principle, I use a comparative approach to examine extant solutions to particular ecological strategies, unravelling design criteria from historical constraint to ultimately inform wing design and flight control in modern unmanned air systems.
Much of my research to date has involved using wind tunnels and high-speed video cameras to film insects and birds. As the insects fly through smoke trails the patterns shed into the wake can be reconstructed to describe the flow topology (for example the flow can be attached like a regular aircraft, or separated like the type of flows utilised by Concorde and other delta wing aircraft) and unconventional aerodynamic mechanisms to generate extra lift. Using this smoke visualisation technique as well as quantitative methods (time-resolved, stereo and tomographic Particle Image Velocimetry; PIV) I have gone some way to unravelling the mysteries of insect flight including the so-called 'bumblebee paradox' - that insect wings are too small to support the weight of the insect if they use conventional aerodynamics alone.
I have worked on animal architecture and the mechanical linkages which allow insects to fly and jump. I have an active interest in the neurobiological mechanisms that insects use to stay aloft, including flow-sensing and load-sensing, and the phenomenon of optic flow and how it can be used to control flight. My research uses several pieces of unique or state-of-the-art equipment including volumetric PIV, paired cameras for high-speed trajectory tracking, and a virtual reality chamber for flies and hawkmoths, which provides a range of optical stimuli for tethered insects in an attempt to determine how steering is affected by cues from the compound eyes. I also have an interest in internal flows and the haemodynamics of abdominal aortic aneurysms.
Below: Lily the Barn Owl revealing her wake as she glides through a field of bubbles. (Lily comes courtesy of Lloyd and Rose Buck)
Nila, A., et al., Optical measurements of fluid-structure interactions for the description of nature-inspired wing dynamics, in 2016 RAeS Applied Aerodynamics Conference. (2016), Royal Aeronautical Society: Bristol, UK.
Stevens, R.J., Babinsky, H., Manar, F., Mancini, P., Jones, A.R., Granlund, K.O., Ol, M.V., Nakata, T., Phillips, N., Bomphrey, R.J., et al. (2016) Low Reynolds Number Acceleration of Flat Plate Wings at High Incidence (Invited). In 54th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Jones, A., Manar, F., Phillips, N., Nakata, T., Bomphrey, R.J., Ringuette, M.J., Percin, M., van Oudheusden, B.W. & Palmer, J. (2016) Leading Edge Vortex Evolution and Lift Production on Rotating Wings (Invited). In 54th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
selected pre-2014
I lead the Comparative Animal Locomotion third-year BSc module, contributing to The Moving Animal module for first year undergraduates, supervising research projects and mentoring graduate students.
Science festivals including the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition, Cheltenham Science Festival, the Oxford Science Festival, the BBSRC Great British Bioscience Festival and the Gravity Fields Festival in celebration of Isaac Newton. Talks, lectures and seminars including to schools, UCL's bio-inspired robotics summer school, the Institute of Physics and the Royal Aeronautical Society. Wellcome Trust New Scientist popular science writing prize. TV documentary profiles and consultancy including the BBC (Life in the Air, Wonders of Life, Animal Camera, Invisible Worlds), SKY (Conquest of the Skies 3D, MicroMonsters 3D), Discovery Channel (Daily Planet). Daily Telegraph STEM hero of the month for highlighting and promoting career paths in science, technology, engineering and maths subjects.
-
Avian Wing Morphing
People: Jorn Cheney, Jialei Song, Jim Usherwood, Richard Bomphrey
We are measuring dynamic morphing in bird wings using modern computer vision approaches to develop dynamic three-dimensional surfaces. Using these models, we are exploring kinematic patterns of force generation, identifying mechanisms of gust rejection and recovery, and performing computational fluid dynamics to understand how forces are produced and distributed. These results will shed new insight into the interplay between passive/active wing morphing and aerodynamic force generation and may lead to a new generation of aircraft.
-
Fly-by-Feel: The neural representation of aeroelasticity
People: Richard Bomphrey, Masateru Maeda
Professor Richard Bomphrey's group has embarked on a project in collaboration with Dr Huai-Ti Lin's lab at Imperial College London to elucidate how insects sense wing deformation in flight when they are bent and twisted by aerodynamic and inertial loads. The researchers are particularly interested in how insects use that information to control their flight.