柔性扑翼的气动特性研究

以往扑翼的气动力计算研究都很少考虑扑翼的柔性,而在鸟的扑翼动作中,在外加气动力和鸟自身的扑动力作用下,扑翼的柔性变形相当大。本文在原有匀速刚性模型的基础上,提出考虑了扑翼扑动速率变化和形状变化的扑翼分析模型,使之更接近鸟翼柔性扑动真实情况。通过计算分析气动特性发现,控制适当的话,柔性变形能大大改善扑翼的气动性能。本文通过模拟鸟扑翼的柔性运动,计算了时柔性扑翼气动力以及平均升力系数和平均推力系数随着扑动角、倾斜角等参数变化的情况,从而从气动的角度解释了为什么鸟在不同的飞行阶段扑翼规律各不相同,并为柔性扑翼飞行器的设计提供了理论依据。     

扑翼飞行器带翼刀机翼气动特性实验研究

通过进行微型扑翼飞行器低速风洞试验,研究了带弯度机翼下翼面翼刀对扑翼飞行器升阻特性的影响。文中进行了带翼刀机翼和不带翼刀机翼在不同迎角下的风洞吹风试验。试验结果表明,带翼刀机翼升力系数大于不带翼刀机翼升力系数,从而证明了翼刀可以阻止机翼下表面气流展向流动,起到增加机翼升力的作用。当扑翼在小迎角飞行时,带翼刀机翼可以有效地提高扑翼的气动效率,改善扑翼的飞行性能。研究结果可为带翼刀机翼在扑翼飞行器上的应用提供技术支持。     

前后双扑翼水平距离及相位差对其气动性能的影响

通过在动态网格上求解Navier-Stokes方程,对前后双扑翼的非定常粘性流场进行了数值模拟和气动干扰分析,考察了前后翼不同水平距离和不同相位差对其气动力和气动效率的影响。结果表明,扑动前翼和静止后翼间的气动干扰在各种不同水平距离下都有利于气动特性的改善,但气动干扰的作用随着前后翼水平距离的增大而减弱;前后双翼扑动的相位差是影响气动性能的重要参数,两翼间的气动干扰是否有利则与相位差和水平距离有直接联系。     

膜扑翼飞行器的变形研究

最近昆虫翼的变形成了研究热点,而扑翼飞行器的变形力学研究却几乎无人问津.然而,无论昆虫、鸟类还是扑翼飞行器在飞行时,翼的变形都是存在的,要精确计算翼扑动产生的气动力,必须考虑其变形.本文比较了导致变形产生的膜扑翼飞行器的惯性力和气动力在一个周期中的变化情况,发现它们的峰值比值为2左右,然后提出了在随体坐标系中的固支边界条件,采用有限元法计算了惯性力和气动力分别对变形的影响,发现扑翼飞行器的气动力对变形的影响是不可忽略的重要因素,而惯性力与气动力的合力引起的最大正变形发生在下扑初始阶段,最大负变形发生在上扑初始阶段.本文为扑翼飞行器的设计提供了力学分析基础.     

基于三路舵机驱动的扑翼飞行模型气动特性研究

扑动而形成非定常气动现象是扑翼飞行过程中产生高升力的主要原因。本文以Ellington实验的鹰蛾翅膀为原形,设计扑翼实验及数值计算模型。通过压差传感器对翅膀模型上翼面固定位置进行测压,分析前缘涡的产生及脱落情况(考虑动压效应)。测量上下翼面固定位置处的压差,揭示扑翼飞行中产生高升力的主要原因。利用烟风洞观察扑翼模型周围流场结构及特殊涡产生变化情况。另外,根据Ellington提供的升力关系式估算了扑翼模型在一个周期内的平均升力。最后,基于三维欧拉方程对扑翼飞行气动特性进行数值模拟,计算结果与实验吻合良好。     

N-S方程数值研究翼型对微型扑翼气动特性的影响

首先基于嵌套网格发展了一套适用于三维扑翼研究的非定常雷诺平均Navier-Stokes(RANS)方程数值模拟方法.为了解决微型扑翼在低马赫数下的收敛问题,使用了预处理方法,湍流模型为BL模型.在该方法的基础上,保持状态参数和扑翼表面形状一定的情况下,分别研究了一系列不同厚度、不同弯度的翼型对于微型扑翼气动特性的影响....     

个体水平间距对群组中扑翼气动性能的影响

研究群组中个体之间的非定常流动机理,可以为仿生飞行器集群运动提供理论基础。采用基于有限元的计算流体力学方法,对前飞状态的扑翼群组个体之间水平间距对气动性能的影响进行研究。研究发现,水平间距对扑翼气动性能具有显著影响。在一定的垂直间距下,群组中扑翼可以在较小的水平间距下获得最佳的推力性能,在较大的水平间距下可以获得最佳的升力性能。扑翼气动性能的变化主要与群组中前翼和后翼的脱落涡相互作用密切相关。     

扑翼飞行器的凸轮摇杆型扑动机构设计与气动力学分析

为了提高扑翼飞行器的飞行性能,借鉴大型鸟类的飞行运动特征,设计了一种以凸轮摇杆为扑动机构的新型扑翼飞行器,建立了扑动机构的运动学和气动力学模型.结果表明:通过大型鸟类翅翼扑动规律对凸轮机构进行优化设计,得到了扑翼下扑占据整个扑动行程的60％左右;而提出的凸轮摇杆扑动机构的运动学模型,能够求解扑翼飞行器的相关运动参数.基...     

两串列扑翼的相位差对平均推力影响机理的实验研究

在一个低雷诺数的循环水洞中,实验研究了前后翅翼之间的相位差对两串列扑翼平均推力的影响.利用一个三分量的Kistler 压力传感器来测量扑翼的瞬时力;利用一个数字粒子测速仪系统(TSI DPIV) 来测量扑翼的前缘涡以及其周围的流场. 当相位差从0° 增加到360°,前翅的平均推力随着相位差正弦变化;前翅平均推力的增加是由于后翅的前缘涡和滞止区域增加了前翅的有效攻角. 后翅平均推力曲线有一个明显的V 字形低谷.低谷处较小的平均推力是由于前翅的脱落涡抑制了后翅前缘涡的形成并且减小了其有效攻角.当间距为0.5倍弦长相位差约为290°时,前后翅翼平均推力系数的合值能达到最大值0.667,明显大于两倍的单翼平均推力系数(2×0.255).      

仿生扑翼飞行机器人翅型的研制与实验研究

模仿昆虫和小鸟飞行的扑翼飞行机器人将举升、悬停和推进功能集于一个扑翼系统,与固定翼和旋翼完全不同,因此研究只能从生物仿生开始。生物飞行的极端复杂性使得进行完整和精确的扑翼飞行分析非常复杂,因此本文在仿生学进展基础上,通过一些合适的假设和简化,建立了仿生翅运动学和空气动力学模型,并以此为基础研制了多种翅型。研制了气动力测量实验平台,对各种翅型进行了实验研究。实验结果表明,研制的翅型都能产生一定的升力,其中柔性翅具有较好的运动性能和气动性能,并且拍动频率和拍动幅度对升力有较大影响。     

Effects of unsteady deformation of flapping wing on its aerodynamic forces

Effects of unsteady deformation of a flapping model insect wing on its aerodynamic force production are studied by solving the Navier-Stokes equations on a dynamically deforming grid.Aerodynamic forces on the flapping wing are not much affected by considerable twist,but affected by camber deformation.The effect of combined camber and twist deformation is similar to that of camber deformation.With a deformation of 6% camber and 20°twist(typical values observed for wings of many insects),lift is increased bv 10%～20%and lift-to-drag ratio by around 10%compared with the case of a rigid flat-plate wing.As a result.the deformation can increase the maximum lift coefficient of an insect.and reduce its power requirement for flight.For example,for a hovering bumblebee with dynamically deforming wings(6?mber and 20°twist),aerodynamic power required is reduced by about 16%compared with the case of rigid wings.     

Experimental investigation on aerodynamic performance of a flapping wing vehicle in forward flight

The aerodynamic performance of a flexible membrane flapping wing has been investigated here. For this purpose, a flapping-wing system and an experimental set-up were designed to measure the unsteady aerodynamic forces of the flapping wing motion. A one-component force balance was set up to record the temporal variations of aerodynamic forces. The flapping wing was studied in a large low-speed wind tunnel. The lift and thrust of this mechanism were measured for different flapping frequencies, angles of attack and for various wind tunnel velocities. Results indicate that the thrust increases with the flapping frequency. An increase in the wind tunnel speed and flow angle of attack leads to reduction in the thrust value and increases the lift component. The aerodynamic and performance parameters were nondimensionalized. Appropriate models were introduced which show its aerodynamic performance and may be used in the design process and also optimization of the flapping wing.     

Analogy between a flapping wing and a wind turbine with a vertical axis of revolution

Based on an analysis of available experimental data, the hypothesis about an analogy between a flapping wing and a wind turbine of the Darrieus rotor type is justified. It is demonstrated that the torque on the shaft of the Darrieus rotor is generated by thrust forces acting on the blades in a pulsed flow. A conclusion is drawn that it is necessary to perform aerodynamic calculations of blades on the basis of the nonlinear theory of the wing in an unsteady flow with allowance for the airfoil thickness. __________ Translated from Prikladnaya Mekhanika i Tekhnicheskaya Fizika, Vol. 50, No. 2, pp. 152–155, March–April, 2009.     

An analytic approach to theoretical modeling of highly unsteady viscous flow excited by wing flapping in small insects

Numerous studies on the aerodynamics of insect wing flapping were carried out on different approaches of flight investigations, model experiments, and numerical simulations, but the theoretical modeling remains to be explored. In the present paper, an analytic approach is presented to model the flow interactions of wing flapping in air for small insects with the surrounding flow fields being highly unsteady and highly viscous. The model of wing flapping is a 2-D flat plate, which makes plunging and pitching oscillations as well as quick rotations reversing its positions of leading and trailing edges, respectively, during stroke reversals. It contains three simplified aerodynamic assumptions: (i) unsteady potential flow; (ii) discrete vortices shed from both leading and trailing edges of the wing; (iii) Kutta conditions applied at both edges. Then the problem is reduced to the solution of the unsteady Laplace equation, by using distributed singularities, i.e., sources/sinks, and vortices in the field. To validate the present physical model and analytic method proposed via benchmark examples, two elemental motions in wing flapping and a case of whole flapping cycles are analyzed, and the predicted results agree well with available experimental and numerical data. This verifies that the present analytical approach may give qualitatively correct and quantitatively reasonable results. Furthermore, the total fluid-dynamic force in the present method can be decomposed into three parts: one due to the added inertial (or mass) effect, the other and the third due to the induction of vortices shed from the leading-and the trailing-edge and their images respectively, and this helps to reveal the flow control mechanisms in insect wing flapping. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (10072066) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (KJCX-SW-LO4, KJCX2-SW-L2)     

Effects of wing deformation on aerodynamic performance of a revolving insect wing

Flexible wings of insects and bio-inspired micro air vehicles generally deform remarkably during flapping flight owing to aerodynamic and inertial forces,which is of highly nonlinear fluid-structure interaction（FSI）problems.To elucidate the novel mechanisms associated with flexible wing aerodynamics in the low Reynolds number regime,we have built up a FSI model of a hawkmoth wing undergoing revolving and made an investigation on the effects of flexible wing deformation on aerodynamic performance of the revolving wing model.To take into account the characteristics of flapping wing kinematics we designed a kinematic model for the revolving wing in two-fold：acceleration and steady rotation,which are based on hovering wing kinematics of hawkmoth,Manduca sexta.Our results show that both aerodynamic and inertial forces demonstrate a pronounced increase during acceleration phase,which results in a significant wing deformation.While the aerodynamic force turns to reduce after the wing acceleration terminates due to the burst and detachment of leading-edge vortices（LEVs）,the dynamic wing deformation seem to delay the burst of LEVs and hence to augment the aerodynamic force during and even after the acceleration.During the phase of steady rotation,the flexible wing model generates more ver-tical force at higher angles of attack（40°–60°）but less horizontal force than those of a rigid wing model.This is because the wing twist in spanwise owing to aerodynamic forces results in a reduction in the effective angle of attack at wing tip,which leads to enhancing the aerodynamics performance by increasing the vertical force while reducing the horizontal force.Moreover,our results point out the importance of the fluid-structure interaction in evaluating flexible wing aerodynamics：the wing deformation does play a significant role in enhancing the aerodynamic performances but works differently during acceleration and steady rotation,which is mainly induced by inertial force in acceleration but by aerodynamic forces     

Three-dimensional effects on the translational locomotion of a passive heaving wing

This study was carried out on a three-dimensional wing with a freedom in translational direction under a prescribed up and down heaving motion. The investigation focused on how the system kinematics and structural parameters affect the dynamic response of a wing with a relatively small span length. The induced wing motion is a result of the system stability breakdown, which has only been observed by previous researches in the two-dimensional case. The results obtained indicate that the evolution of the wing locomotion is controlled not only by the flapping frequency but also influenced by the system inertia as well as the wing aspect ratio and density ratio. Moreover, initial perturbation effect on wings flexibility plays a role in the evolution development.     

Numerical investigation on aerodynamic performance of a bionic flapping wing

This paper numerically studies the aerodynamic performance of a bird-like bionic flapping wing. The geometry and kinematics are designed based on a seagull wing,in which flapping, folding, swaying, and twisting are considered. An in-house unsteady flow solver based on hybrid moving grids is adopted for unsteady flow simulations. We focus on two main issues in this study, i.e., the influence of the proportion of down-stroke and the effect of span-wise twisting. Numerical results show that the proportion of downstroke is closely related to the efficiency of the flapping process. The preferable proportion is about 0.7 by using the present geometry and kinematic model, which is very close to the observed data. Another finding is that the drag and the power consumption can be greatly reduced by the proper span-wise twisting. Two cases with different reduced frequencies are simulated and compared with each other. The numerical results show that the power consumption reduces by more than 20%, and the drag coefficient reduces by more than 60% through a proper twisting motion for both cases. The flow mechanism is mainly due to controlling of unsteady flow separation by adjusting the local effective angle of attack. These conclusions will be helpful for the high-performance micro air vehicle(MAV) design.     

Effects of aspect ratio on flapping wing aerodynamics in animal flight

Morphology as well as kinematics is a critical determinant of performance in flapping flight.To understand the effects of the structural traits on aerodynamics of bioflyers,three rectangular wings with aspect ratios（AR）of1,2,and 4 performing hovering-like sinusoidal kinematics at wingtip based Reynolds number of 5 300 are experimentally investigated.Flow structures on sectional cuts along the wing span are compared.Stronger K-H instability is found on the leading edge vortex of wings with higher aspect ratios.Vortex bursting only appears on the outer spanwise locations of high-aspect-ratio wings.The vortex bursting on high-aspect-ratio wings is perhaps one of the reasons why bio-flyers normally have low-aspect-ratio wings.Quantitative analysis exhibits larger dimensionless circulation of the leading edge vortex（LEV）over higher aspect ratio wings except when vortex bursting happens.The average dimensionless circulation of AR1 and AR2 along the span almost equals the dimensionless circulation at the 50%span.The flow structure and the circulation analysis show that the sinusoidal kinematics suppresses breakdown of the LEV compared with simplified flapping kinematics used in similar studies.The Reynolds number effect results on AR4 show that in the current Re range,the overall flow structure is not sensitive to Reynolds number.