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Experimental study on interaction of aerodynamics with flexible wings of flapping vehicles in hovering and cruise flight

Mazaheri, K ; Sharif University of Technology | 2010

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  1. Type of Document: Article
  2. DOI: 10.1007/s00419-009-0360-8
  3. Publisher: 2010
  4. Abstract:
  5. Flapping wings are promising lift and thrust generators, especially for very low Reynolds numbers. To investigate aeroelastic effects of flexible wings (specifically, wing's twisting stiffness) on hovering and cruising aerodynamic performance, a flapping-wing system and an experimental setup were designed and built. This system measures the unsteady aerodynamic and inertial forces, power usage, and angular speed of the flapping wing motion for different flapping frequencies and for various wings with different chordwise flexibility. Aerodynamic performance of the vehicle for both no wind (hovering) and cruise condition was investigated. Results show how elastic deformations caused by interaction of inertial and aerodynamic forces with the flexible structure may affect specific power consumption. This information was used here to find a more suitable structural design. The best selected design in our tests performs up to 30% better than others (i.e., less energy consumption for the same lift or thrust generation). This measured aerodynamic information could also be used as a benchmarking data for unsteady flow solvers
  6. Keywords:
  7. Cruise flight ; Flapping wing ; Flexible wing ; Hovering flight ; Aerodynamic forces ; Aerodynamic performance ; Aeroelastic effects ; Angular speed ; Benchmarking data ; Energy consumption ; Experimental setup ; Experimental studies ; Flapping frequency ; Flapping wing motion ; Inertial forces ; Low Reynolds number ; Power usage ; Specific power consumption ; Thrust generation ; Thrust generators ; Unsteady aerodynamics ; Aerodynamics ; Aeroelasticity ; Energy utilization ; Flexible structures ; Reynolds number ; Structural design ; Flexible wings
  8. Source: Archive of Applied Mechanics ; Volume 80, Issue 11 , 2010 , Pages 1255-1269 ; 09391533 (ISSN)
  9. URL: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00419-009-0360-8