EFFECTS OF KINEMATICS ON LOW REYNOLDS NUMBER WING

摘要

Insects' aerodynamic performance has been an area of interest for years, for both biologists and engineers. Micro-air vehicles developments require more research in this area to determine best flight performance. Their flapping wings' effectiveness in producing both lift and thrust has been enabled them to hover and fly forward. Recent studies have proved that with capabilities of CFD calculations, parametric investigation of the associated parameters is possible. The purpose of present investigation is to numerically study the effects and phenomena caused by different kinematics of flapping wing, so different flapping kinematics has been simulated and investigated to better understand fluid characteristics in such cases. Effect of wing's vertical displacement as well as the effects of wing rotation (pitch angle) is studied. Dynamic mesh with laminar finite volume flow solver is used and the method is validated. Results show that how wing-vortex interaction and angle between flapping direction and wing inclination can control hovering (vertical) force.