April 15 marks the 570th anniversary of the birth of one of the brightest representatives of the Renaissance
Italian painter, sculptor, architect, scientist and engineer of the Renaissance Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452 in the village of Anchiano near the city of Vinci. Although Leonardo is best known for his paintings such as the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper, his achievements in the fields of civil engineering, chemistry, geology, geometry, fluid dynamics, mathematics, mechanical engineering, optics, physics, pyrotechnics and zoology are equally famous. are credited with a large number of inventions, many of which were ahead of their time.
Sergei Sinyutin, head of the department of embedded and radio receiving systems at the Institute of Radio Engineering Systems and Control of Southern Federal University, admits that he has long been interested in the inventions of Leonardo da Vinci:
“Leonardo’s inventions are of interest primarily from the point of view of studying the very process of forming an invention: how, with limited knowledge of the laws of physics and chemistry, one still manages to design fully functional new structures!”
The “propeller” is the distant ancestor of the modern helicopter
The Italian genius created the helicopter project in the late 1480s, when he served as a military engineer for the Duke of Milan, Louis Sforza. The propeller radius of the aircraft was about 4.8 meters. Its load-bearing surface is made of canvas with a metal edging. According to the plan, at the bottom of the mechanism there should have been a crew of several people who would move in a circle and push the levers. Leonardo envisioned that a flax propeller, if turned fast enough, would push air and lift the entire structure.
According to the scientist, the only thing Leonardo’s car has in common with a modern helicopter is vertical take-off. But it is impossible to transport people on such an aircraft.
“Simulation of a two-bladed propeller with a diameter of 4.8 meters, a propeller pitch of three meters, at a rotation speed of 600 rpm gives a thrust of 178 kg with an input power of 50 kW. A person can develop a power of about 2 kW for a short time. It’s also not realistic to keep the weight of 178 kg, even with a carbon construction. The biggest problem is the stability of such a machine in the air. The problem of ensuring stability turned out to be so complex that da Vinci’s helicopter scheme only became a reality in the 1930s, when planes flew at speeds of 400 km/h and transported dozens of people thousands of kilometers,” explains Sergei Sinyutin .
A self-propelled carriage as a prototype of a car
Da Vinci’s “car” is usually called a project for a self-propelled four-wheeled cart. True, it is difficult to understand how it should move from the drawings. It has long been believed that Leonardo’s carriage must have been propelled by a spring mechanism similar to that used in crossbows. But later, when digitizing the drawings, it turned out that the engine was flat springs, similar to those used in mechanical watches. Moreover, the cart had a brake.
“Leonardo did not conceive his “Car” for mass production – there were no seats for the driver and passengers. The cart was intended for entertainment festivals; its power reserve at full factory was only 40-50 meters,” says the scientist.
Ball bearings
Today, bearings are widely used in a variety of mechanisms whose operating principle is based on rotation and movement. But few people know that the bearing design was developed by Leonardo. It was based on a sliding ring with eight smooth balls inside, each of which could move freely and hardly touch each other, thereby reducing wear during friction.
“The first ball bearing was created only 200 years after the death of the Italian genius. Although this mechanism could have been created during da Vinci’s lifetime, this would have accelerated progress. But this, unfortunately, did not happen. But today ball bearings are used in all moving devices,” says Sergei Sinyutin.
“Tent” in the shape of a pyramid as a prototype of a parachute
The drawing of the first parachute dates back to 1483. The inventor believed that if a person had a tent made of starched linen 12 cubits wide and high, he would be able to throw himself from any height without danger to himself. Leonardo’s parachute was made in the shape of a pyramid, covered with thick fabric.
“What is its main difference from the modern one? Leonardo did not come up with his parachute in order to throw himself from a great height – rather, it was an aircraft for moving in the air. Of course, using such a parachute is unsafe,” says the scientist.
Invented the bicycle?
The invention of the bicycle is also attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. However, researchers are inclined to believe that the drawing is a later fake or was made by the inventor’s students.
“Can the bicycle invented in Da Vinci’s era be called a “simple invention”? In any case, all its main details – wheels, steering wheel, lever – were known several thousand years ago,” notes Sergei Sinyutin.
At the Southern Federal University, not only scientists, but also students annually create a large number of developments in various fields of science. Thus, at SFU they are developing methods for restoring and preserving soil resources, conducting research in the field of agroclimatological models, working in the field of accelerating the design of new chemical compounds for low-carbon technologies, robotics, neurotechnologies, genetics, and much more.