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Experiments and videos reveal how winds create complex patterns in Ned Kahn’s artworks

Inspired by environmental artist Ned Kahn’s building facades – made of thousands of aluminum plates that oscillate in sync with changing winds – the researchers (Zhang & Perrard) uncovered the physical mechanisms that generate the unique patterns on these facades. They characterized videos of installations available on YouTube such as the facade of the Swiss Science Center Technorama and conducted experiments using a string of millimeter pendulums in a wind tunnel at PMMH. Their analyses showed that at lower wind speeds, the response of each pendulum is mainly determined by resonance at its natural frequency, while at higher wind speeds, the response is determined by pressure fluctuations driven by the wind as it moves across the facade. By confirming that these patterns propagate waves, this study reveals the invisible forces that create the mutable and scintillating patterns of the facades.

link to the article on PRFluids :
https://journals.aps.org/prfluids/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.9.114604

twitter link :
https://x.com/PhysRevFluids/status/1857419035379487055

link to the personal/professional website of the artist Ned Kahn :
https://nedkahn.com/