Design of a lift-optimized flapping-wing using a finite element aeroelastic framework of insect flight

摘要

This paper reports the development of a framework developed to understand and optimize the aeroelastic performance of flapping wing nano-air vehicles (FWNAV). Relying on the finite element method and a quasi-steady semi-empirical approach to compute the aerodynamic forces using each FE-kinematics, our aeroelastic framework proves itself to be sufficiently reliable and accurate in evaluating various performance items. Therefore an optimization process was initiated using a genetic algorithm and the aeroelastic framework as its kernel to scan a broad large design for promising wings. The overall process may thus be seen as a preliminary design tool to help engineers, researchers in making technical choices to speed up the design of their FWNAVs. An initial optimization on the mean adimensioned lift for a simple wing design is done serving as a benchmark and as a risk-reduction optimization before launching more complex and realistic optimization. A major issue was identified in the dependencies of our aeroelastic framework towards mesh and time-step size. Nonetheless due to its flexibility, easiness and speed, our aeroelastic framework can already been seen has a design tool.