An investigation on the lift force of a wing pitching in dynamic stall for a comfort control vessel

On the basis of a comfort control system for ocean vessels, the control forces and moments in the form of lift forces from active wings are of important interest. In an ocean vessel comfort control system, active wings or fins are commonly used and constantly adjust their angles of attack to produce optimal sea-keeping conditions. The unsteady nature of the flow field around a wing, and the behaviour of the generated lift force must be understood in order to optimize the comfort control system. This paper presents experimental data on the flow past a pitching wing, paying particular attention to the lagging effects between the fluid dynamic lift force and the motion of the wing at large angles of attack as a function of peak angle of attack and reduced frequency of oscillation. The range of motion investigated has been chosen according to the applicability of a comfort control wing surface. Numerical data is also included to aid explanation on some of the witnessed phenomena.     

Effects of tip perturbation and wing locations on rolling oscillation induced by forebody vortices

The wing rock motion is frequently suffered by a wing-body configuration with low swept wing at high angle of attack. It is found from our experimental study that the tip perturbation and wing longitudinal locations affect significantly the wing rock motion of a wing-body. The natural tip perturbation would make the wing rock motion of a nondeterministic nature and an artificial mini-tip perturbation would make the wing rock motion deterministic. The artificial tip perturbation would, as its circumferential location is varied, generate three different types of motion patterns： （1） limit cycle oscillation, （2） irregular oscillation, （3） equilibrium state with tiny oscillation. The amplitude of rolling oscillation corresponding to the limit cycle oscillatory motion pattern is decreased with the wing location shifting downstream along the body axis.     

Influence of wing flexibility on the aerodynamic performance of a tethered flapping bumblebee

The sophisticated structures of flapping insect wings make it challenging to study the role of wing flexibility in insect flight. In this study, a mass-spring system is used to model wing structural dynamics as a thin, flexible membrane supported by a network of veins. The vein mechanical properties can be estimated based on their diameters and the Young's modulus of cuticle. In order to analyze the effect of wing flexibility, the Young's modulus is varied to make a comparison between two different wing models that we refer to as flexible and highly flexible. The wing models are coupled with a pseudo-spectral code solving the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations, allowing us to investigate the influence of wing deformation on the aerodynamic efficiency of a tethered flapping bumblebee. Compared to the bumblebee model with rigid wings, the one with flexible wings flies more efficiently, characterized by a larger lift-to-power ratio.     

On the unsteady motion and stability of a heaving airfoil in ground effect

This study explores the fluid mechanics and force generation capabilities of an inverted heaving airfoil placed close to a moving ground using a URANS solver with the Spalart-Allmaras turbulence model. By varying the mean ground clearance and motion frequency of the airfoil, it was possible to construct a frequency-height diagram of the various forces acting on the airfoil. The ground was found to enhance the downforce and reduce the drag with respect to freestream. The unsteady motion induces hysteresis in the forces’ behaviour. At moderate ground clearance, the hysteresis increases with frequency and the airfoil loses energy to the flow, resulting in a stabilizing motion. By analogy with a pitching motion, the airfoil stalls in close proximity to the ground. At low frequencies, the motion is unstable and could lead to stall flutter. A stall flutter analysis was undertaken. At higher frequencies, inviscid effects overcome the large separation and the motion becomes stable. Forced trailing edge vortex shedding appears at high frequencies. The shedding mechanism seems to be independent of ground proximity. However, the wake is altered at low heights as a result of an interaction between the vortices and the ground.     

拼接网格技术在复杂流场数值模拟中的应用研究

采用分区拼接网格技术,对 DLR-F6 机翼/机身胜架/短舱复杂组合体进行拼接网格分布.并采用 Menter SST 湍流模型,通过求解 Navier-Stokes 方程,对该组合体外流场以及发动机短舱内流场进行了一体化数值模拟,与相应风洞实验数据及分区搭接网格计算结果进行了比较与分析,验证了拼接网格技术的高效性与可靠性.同时通过分析对比不同插值方法的计算结果,研究了插值方法对拼接精度的影响;通过分析对比几组不同的拼接网格算例,总结出了 3 个拼接网格的基本实施准则.证明了拼接网格能够大幅度减小计算网格数目,可以更加灵活地分布网格节点,这样既可以缩短计算时间,又可以降低对内存的需求,提高了计算效率;同时无论整体的力系数,还是局部的压力分布流场细节都能够满足工程精度.     

Numerical analysis of quasi-static crack branching in brittle solids by a modified displacement discontinuity method

Mechanism of quasi-static crack branching in brittle solids has been analyzed by a modified displacement discontinuity method. It has been assumed that the pre-existing cracks in brittle solids may propagate at the crack tips due to the initiation and propagation of the kink (or wing) cracks. The originated wing cracks will act as new cracks and can be further propagated from their tips according to the linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM) theory. The kink displacement discontinuity formulations (considering the linear and quadratic interpolation functions) are specially developed to calculate the displacement discontinuities for the left and right sides of a kink point so that the first and second mode kink stress intensity factors can be estimated. The crack tips are also treated by boundary displacement collocation technique considering the singularity variation of the displacements and stresses near the crack tip. The propagating direction of the secondary cracks can be predicted by using the maximum tangential stress criterion. An iterative algorithm is used to predict the crack propagating path assuming an incremental increase of the crack length in the predicted direction (straight and curved cracks have been treated). The same approach has been used for estimating the crack propagating direction and path of the original and wing cracks considering the special crack tip elements. Some example problems are numerically solved assuming quasi-static conditions. These results are compared with the corresponding experimental and numerical results given in the literature. This comparison validates the accuracy and applicability of the proposed method.     

Efficient aerodynamic shape optimization in MDO context

Multidisciplinary analysis is necessary to reach physically meaningful optimum designs. For aero-structural shape optimization this means coupling two disciplines—aerodynamics and structural mechanics. In this paper, the sensitivity evaluation for aerodynamic shape optimization is considered, while taking into account the static aeroelastic effects introduced by the variations in the aerodynamic forces, which are associated with changes in the aerodynamic shape. Due to the high computational cost of a finite difference evaluation step for such a coupled problem, an extension of the adjoint approach to aeroelasticity is necessary for an efficient calculation of the sensitivities. The implementation, validation and application of such a method in the MDO context described above are presented.     

Acoustic Emission Analysis of Nanoindentation-Induced Fracture Events

Monitoring of acoustic emission activity is employed to characterize the initiation and progression of local failure processes during nanoindentation-induced fracture. Specimens of various brittle materials are loaded with a cube-corner indenter and acoustic emission activity is monitored during the entire loading and unloading event using a transducer mounted inside the specimen holder. As observed from the nanoindentation and acoustic emission response, there are fundamental differences in the fracture behavior of the various materials. Post-failure observations are used to identify particular features in the acoustic emission signal that correspond to specific types of fracture events. Furthermore, analysis of the parametric and transient acoustic emission data is used to establish the crack-initiation threshold, crack-arrest threshold, and energy dissipation during failure. It is demonstrated that the monitoring of acoustic emission signals yields both qualitative and quantitative information regarding highly localized failure events in brittle materials.     

The effects of corrugation and wing planform on the aerodynamic force production of sweeping model insect wings

The effects of corrugation and wing planform (shape and aspect ratio) on the aerodynamic force production of model insect wings in sweeping (rotating after an initial start) motion at Reynolds number 200 and 3500 at angle of attack 40° are investigated, using the method of computational fluid dynamics. A representative wing corrugation is considered. Wing-shape and aspect ratio (AR) of ten representative insect wings are considered; they are the wings of fruit fly, cranefly, dronefly, hoverfly, ladybird, bumblebee, honeybee, lacewing (forewing), hawkmoth and dragonfly (forewing), respectively (AR of these wings varies greatly, from 2.84 to 5.45). The following facts are shown. (1) The corrugated and flat-plate wings produce approximately the same aerodynamic forces. This is because for a sweeping wing at large angle of attack, the length scale of the corrugation is much smaller than the size of the separated flow region or the size of the leading edge vortex (LEV). (2) The variation in wing shape can have considerable effects on the aerodynamic force; but it has only minor effects on the force coefficients when the velocity at r ₂ (the radius of the second moment of wing area) is used as the reference velocity; i.e. the force coefficients are almost unaffected by the variation in wing shape. (3) The effects of AR are remarkably small: when AR increases from 2.8 to 5.5, the force coefficients vary only slightly; flowfield results show that when AR is relatively large, the part of the LEV on the outer part of the wings sheds during the sweeping motion. As AR is increased, on one hand, the force coefficients will be increased due to the reduction of 3-dimensional flow effects; on the other hand, they will be decreased due to the shedding of part of the LEV; these two effects approximately cancel each other, resulting in only minor change of the force coefficients. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (10232010 and 10472008) and Ph. D. Student Foundation of Chinese Ministry of Education (20030006022) The English text was polished by Keren Wang.     

A computational study of the wing–wing and wing–body interactions of a model insect

The aerodynamic interaction between the contralateral wings and between the body and wings of a model insect are studied, by using the method of numerically solving the Navier-Stokes equations over moving overset grids, under typical hovering and forward flight conditions. Both the interaction between the contralateral wings and the interaction between the body and wings are very weak, e.g. at hovering, changes in aerodynamic forces of a wing due to the present of the other wing are less than 3% and changes in aerodynamic forces of the wings due to presence of the body are less than 2%. The reason for this is as following. During each down- or up-stroke, a wing produces a vortex ring, which induces a relatively large jet-like flow inside the ring but very small flow outside the ring. The vortex rings of the left and right wings are on the two sides of the body. Thus one wing is outside vortex ring of the other wing and the body is outside the vortex rings of the left and right wings, resulting in the weak interactions.