Reynolds number, thickness and camber effects on flapping airfoil propulsion

The effect of varying airfoil thickness and camber on plunging and combined pitching and plunging airfoil propulsion at Reynolds number Re=200, 2000, 20 000 and 2×10⁶ was studied by numerical simulations for fully laminar and fully turbulent flow regimes. The thickness study was performed on 2-D NACA symmetric airfoils with 6-50% thick sections undergoing pure plunging motion at reduced frequency k=2 and amplitudes h=0.25 and 0.5, and for combined pitching and plunging motion at k=2, h=0.5, phase ?=90°, pitch angle θ_o=15° and 30° and the pitch axis was located at 1/3 of chord from leading edge. At Re=200 for motions where positive thrust is generated, thin airfoils outperform thick airfoils. At higher Re significant gains could be achieved both in thrust generation and propulsive efficiency by using a thicker airfoil section for plunging and combined motion with low pitch amplitude. The camber study was performed on 2-D NACA airfoils with varying camber locations undergoing pure plunging motion at k=2, h=0.5 and Re=20 000. Little variation in thrust performance was found with camber. The underlying physics behind the alteration in propulsive performance between low and high Reynolds numbers has been explored by comparing viscous Navier-Stokes and inviscid panel method results. The role of leading edge vortices was found to be key to the observed performance variation.     

A new bionic MAV＇s flapping motion based on fruit fly hovering at low Reynolds number

On the basis of the studies on the high unsteady aerodynamic mechanisms of the fruit fly hovering the aerodynamic advantages and disadvantages of the fruit fly flapping motion were analyzed. A new bionic flapping motion was proposed to weaken the disadvantages and maintain the advantages, it may be used in the designing and manufacturing of the micro air vehicles (MAV’s). The translation of the new bionic flapping motion is the same as that of fruit fly flapping motion. However, the rotation of the new bionic flapping motion is different. It is not a pitching-up rotation as the fruit fly flapping motion, but a pitching-down rotation at the beginning and the end of a stroke. The numerical method of 3rd-order Roe scheme developed by Rogers was used to study these questions. The correctness of the numerical method and the computational program was justified by comparing the present CFD results of the fruit fly flapping motion in three modes, i.e., the advanced mode, the symmetrical mode and the delayed mode, with Dickinson’s experimental results. They agreed with each other very well. Subsequently, the aerodynamic characteristics of the new bionic flapping motion in three modes were also numerically simulated, and were compared with those of the fruit fly flapping. The conclusions could be drawn that the high unsteady lift mechanism of the fruit fly hovering is also effectively utilized by this new bionic flapping. Compared with the fruit fly flapping, the unsteady drag of the new flapping decreases very much and the ratio of lift to drag increases greatly. And the great discrepancies among the mean lifts of three flapping modes of the fruit fly hovering are effectively smoothed in the new flapping. On the other hand, this new bionic flapping motion should be realized more easily. Finally, it must be pointed out that the above conclusions were just drawn for the hovering flapping motion. And the aerodynamic characteristics of the new bionic flapping motion in forward flight are going to be studied in the next step. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (10232010, 10032060, 90605005).