Effects of Chordwise Flexibility on the Aerodynamic Performance of a 3D Flapping Wing

Previous studies on chordwise flexibility of flexible wings generally relied on simplified two-dimensional （2D） models. In the present study, we constructed a simplified three-dimensional （3D） model and identified the role of the chordwise flexibility in full flapping motion. This paper includes two parts, the first part discusses the aerodynamic effects of the chordwise flexibility in a typical hovering-flight case; the second part introduces a parametric study of four key parameters. The primary findings are as follows. Flexibility generally degrades the lift performance of the flexible wings. However, in two special cases, i.e. when stroke amplitude is low or pitch rotation is delayed, the flexible wings outperform their rigid counterparts in lift generation. Moreover, flexibility reduces the power consumption of the flexible wings. A wing with small flexibility generally achieves a marginally higher flapping efficiency than its rigid counterpart. Furthermore, reducing stroke amplitude can effectively improve the lift performance of the very flexible wings. Aerodynamic performances of the flexible wings are not as sensitive as the rigid wing to phase difference and mid-stroke angle of attaek. The effects of Re are the same for the flexible and rigid wings.

PREDICTION OF LOADING DISTRIBUTION AND HYDRODYNAMIC MEASUREMENTS FOR PROPELLER BLADES IN A RIM DRIVEN THRU-STER

This article presents an approach which employs a commercial Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes（RANS）solver to predict the steady wake field and loading distributions for a rim driven thruster.Four different cases of propeller blades are chosen to be calculated with the presented method.The propeller blade radial circulation and chordwise circulation density distributions are analyzed.The maximum radial circulation is found at the blade tip,which is different from conventional shaft driven propeller.The numerical results indicate that there is no tip leakage vortex in rim driven propulors.But there exist the tip joint vortex and the root region vortex.Bollard characteristics are calculated by taking rim surface effect into account.From the predicted results the second case in this paper is selected as the final one to perform hydrodynamic experiment.The calculation results with empirical rim surface corrections are compared with the measurement.It shows that the developed numerical method can well predict hydrodynamic performances of the rim driven thruster.

Effect of an end plate on surface pressure distributions of two swept wings

A series of wind tunnel tests was conducted to examine how an end plate affects the pressure distributions of two wings with leading edge（LE） sweep angles of 23° and 40°. All the experiments were carried out at a midchord Reynolds number of 8×10～5, covering an angle of attack（AOA） range from -2° to 14°. Static pressure distribution measurements were acquired over the upper surfaces of the wings along three chordwise rows and one spanwise direction at the wing quarter-chord line. The results of the tests confirm that at a particular AOA, increasing the sweep angle causes a noticeable decrease in the upper-surface suction pressure. Furthermore, as the sweep angle increases, the development of a laminar separation bubble near the LEs of the wings takes place at higher AOAs. On the other hand, spanwise pressure measurements show that increasing the wing sweep angle results in forming a stronger vortex on the quarter-chord line which has lower sensitivity to AOA variation and remains substantially attached to the wing surface for higher AOAs than that can be achieved in the case of a lower sweep angle. In addition, data obtained indicate that installing an end plate further reinforces the spanwise flow over the wing surface, thus affecting the pressure distribution.