Aerodynamic Hovering Performance of Rigid and Flexible Wing Planform Shapes
نویسندگان
چکیده
Wing geometric parameters govern the aerodynamic performance of insects and micro aerial vehicles. Previous studies of wing shapes have been limited to rigid wings. The aerodynamic hovering performance of rigid and flexible wing shapes for aspect ratio AR = 1.5 is evaluated computationally at the Reynolds number (Re) of 400. The three-dimensional viscous incompressible Navier-Stokes equations are solved for rigid wing simulations using a sharp interface immersed boundary method (IBM) coupled with an in-house non-linear finite element based structure solver for flexible wing simulations. The wing shapes with different area distributions along the span are defined by the radius of the first moment of wing area ( ). We model = 0.43, 0.53 and 0.63 wings using a beta distribution. The results show that for a given shape, the flexible wing produces higher mean lift coefficient ( ) at the cost of the power economy (PE, defined as the ratio between mean lift and aerodynamic power coefficients). Compared to the rigid wing, deformation in a high flexible wing results in large variation in the pitch angle during flapping. Consequently, is high during supination and pronation accompanied by a drop in during the stroke reversal. Flexible wings produce a wider range of lift but require higher peak aerodynamic and inertial power inputs. For a given , flexible wings require smaller to produce the same aerodynamic performance as rigid wings.
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