Acceleration of unsteady vortex lattice method via dipole panel fast multipole method

The Unsteady Vortex Lattice Method(UVLM) is a medium-fidelity aerodynamic tool that has been widely used in aeroelasticity and flight dynamics simulations. The most timeconsuming step is the evaluation of the induced velocity. Supposing that the number of bound and wake lattices is N and the computational cost is O (N2), we present an OeNT Dipole Panel Fast Multipole Method(DPFMM) for the rapid evaluation of the induced velocity in UVLM. The multipole expansion coefficients of a quadrilateral dipole panel have been derived in spherical coordinates, whose accuracy is the same as that of the Biot-Savart kernel at the same truncation degree P.Two methods(the loosening method and the shrinking method) are proposed and tested for space partitioning volumetric panels. Compared with FMM for vortex filaments(with three harmonics),DPFMM is approximately two times faster for N2 [103,106]. The simulation time of a multirotor(N~104) is reduced from 100 min(with unaccelerated direct solver) to 2 min(with DPFMM).

IMPROVED UVLM FOR FLAPPING-WING AERODYNAMICS COMPUTATION

To calculate the aerodynamics of flapping-wing micro air vehicle（MAV） with the high efficiency and the engineering-oriented accuracy,an improved unsteady vortex lattice method （UVLM） for MAV is proposed. The method considers the influence of instantaneous wing deforming in flapping,as well as the induced drag,additionally models the stretching and the dissipation of vortex rings,and can present the aerodynamics status on the wing surface. An implementation of the method is developed. Moreover,the results and the efficiency of the proposed method are verified by CFD methods. Considering the less time cost of UVLM,for application of UVLM in the MAV optimization,the influence of wake vortex ignoring time saving and precision is studied. Results show that saving in CPU time with wake vortex ignoring the appropriate distance is considerable while the precision is not significantly reduced. It indicates the potential value of UVLM in the optimization of MAV design.

Transient aeroelastic responses and flutter analysis of a variable-span wing during the morphing process

To investigate the transient aeroelastic responses and flutter characteristics of a variablespan wing during the morphing process,a novel frst-order state-space aeroelastic model is proposed.The time-varying structural model of the morphing wing is established based on the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory with time-dependent boundary conditions.A nondimensionalization method is used to translate the time-dependent boundary conditions to be time-independent.The time-domain aerodynamic forces are calculated by the reduced-order unsteady vortex lattice method.The morphing parameters,i.e.,wing span length and morphing speed,are of particular interest for understanding the fundamental aeroelastic behavior of variable-span wings.A test case is proposed and numerical results indicate that the flutter characteristics are sensitive to both of the two morphing parameters.It could be noticed that the aeroelastic characteristics during the wing extracting process are more serious than those during the extending process at the same morphing speed by transient aeroelastic response analysis.In addition,a faster morphing process can get better aeroelastic performance while the mechanism comlexity will arise.