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.

The Importance of Flapping Kinematic Parameters in the Facilitation of the Different Flight Modes of Dragonflies

To better understand dragonflies’remarkable flapping wing aerodynamic performance,we measured the kinematic parameters of the wings in two different flight modes(Normal Flight Mode(NFM)and Escape Flight Mode(EFM)).When the specimens switched from normal to escape mode the flapping frequency was invariant,but the stroke plane of the wings was more horizontally inclined.The flapping of both wings was adjusted to be more ventral with a change of the pitching angle that resulted in a larger angle of attack during downstroke and smaller during upstroke to affect the flow directions and the added mass effect.Noticeably,the phasing between the fore and hind pair of wings varies between two flight modes,which affects the wing-wing interaction as well as body oscillations.It is found that the momentum stream in the wake of EFM is qualitatively different from that in NFM.The change of the stroke plane angle and the varied pitching angle of the wings diverts the momentum downwards,while the smaller flapping amplitude and less phase difference between the wings compresses the momentum stream.It seems that in order to achieve greater flight maneuverability a flight vehicle needs to actively control positional angle as well as the pitching angle of the flapping wings.