Micro air vehicles (MAV's) have the potential to revolutionize our sensing and information gathering capabilities in environmental monitoring and homeland security areas. Due to the MAV's' small size, flight regi...Micro air vehicles (MAV's) have the potential to revolutionize our sensing and information gathering capabilities in environmental monitoring and homeland security areas. Due to the MAV's' small size, flight regime, and modes of operation, significant scientific advancement will be needed to create this revolutionary capability. Aerodynamics, structural dynamics, and flight dynamics of natural flyers intersects with some of the richest problems in MAV's, inclu- ding massively unsteady three-dimensional separation, transition in boundary layers and shear layers, vortical flows and bluff body flows, unsteady flight environment, aeroelasticity, and nonlinear and adaptive control are just a few examples. A challenge is that the scaling of both fluid dynamics and structural dynamics between smaller natural flyer and practical flying hardware/lab experiment (larger dimension) is fundamentally difficult. In this paper, we offer an overview of the challenges and issues, along with sample results illustrating some of the efforts made from a computational modeling angle.展开更多
Winged animals such as insects are capable of flying and surviving in an unsteady and unpredictable aerial environment.They generate and control aerodynamic forces by flapping their flexible wings.While the dynamic sh...Winged animals such as insects are capable of flying and surviving in an unsteady and unpredictable aerial environment.They generate and control aerodynamic forces by flapping their flexible wings.While the dynamic shape changes of their flapping wings are known to enhance the efficiency of their flight,they can also affect the stability of a flapping wing flyer under unpredictable disturbances by responding to the sudden changes of aerodynamic forces on the wing.In order to test the hypothesis,the gust response of flexible flapping wings is investigated numerically with a specific focus on the passive maintenance of aerodynamic forces by the wing flexibility.The computational model is based on a dynamic flight simulator that can incorporate the realistic morphology,the kinematics,the structural dynamics,the aerodynamics and the fluid-structure interactions of a hovering hawkmoth.The longitudinal gusts are imposed against the tethered model of a hovering hawkmoth with flexible flapping wings.It is found that the aerodynamic forces on the flapping wings are affected by the gust,because of the increase or decrease in relative wingtip velocity or kinematic angle of attack.The passive shape change of flexible wings can,however,reduce the changes in the magnitude and direction of aerodynamic forces by the gusts from various directions,except for the downward gust.Such adaptive response of the flexible structure to stabilise the attitude can be classified into the mechanical feedback,which works passively with minimal delay,and is of great importance to the design of bio-inspired flapping wings for micro-air vehicles.展开更多
In order to get an effective solution of the in-flight wing deformation measurement for high-wing aircrafts with high-aspect-ratio,a method based on three-dimensional(3D)speckle correlation technique is proposed.First...In order to get an effective solution of the in-flight wing deformation measurement for high-wing aircrafts with high-aspect-ratio,a method based on three-dimensional(3D)speckle correlation technique is proposed.Firstly,an in-flight wing deformation measurement system with two sets of conjugate cameras is designed based on structural characteristics and test requirements of high-wing aircrafts with large-aspect-ratio.Secondly,the in-flight wing deformation measurement method based on 3D speckle correlation technique is introduced including three aspects:measuring system and wing datum calibration,speckle image matching and 3D reconstruction,and wing deformation analysis.Fi-nally,ground simulation test of dynamic deformation measurement of a scaled model wing and flight test of dynamic deformation measurement of a large transport wing are carried out.The test results show that the measuring accuracy of single point coordinate in ground simulation test is better than 0.1 mm/m,in the airborne vibration environment,the static single-point positioning accuracy is bet-ter than 5 mm,and the in-flight wing deformation measurement data is well received by the flight test engineers.This method can satisfy the requirements of stability,reliability,high precision,non-con-tact and full-field measurement for dynamic deformation measurement of aircraft wing with high-as-pect-ratio.展开更多
In this paper, the propulsion performance of a spanwise flexible oscillating wing, which is broadly similar to the undulation of a fin fluke, is investigated. The geometry of the fluke underwent three prescribed harmo...In this paper, the propulsion performance of a spanwise flexible oscillating wing, which is broadly similar to the undulation of a fin fluke, is investigated. The geometry of the fluke underwent three prescribed harmonic oscillating motions simultaneously while surging with constant velocity. The effect of deflection phase angle, flexibility parameter, and wing tip deflection amplitude on thrust coefficient and swimming efficiency was studied. A low-order unsteady panel method coupled with a time stepping algorithm for free wake alignment is implemented in a computer program to estimate the propulsion efficiency of lifting bodies. A novel approach is introduced to evaluate the singular integrals of line vortices by using an adaptive mollifier function. This method is an efficient way to accelerate computational speed by reducing the order of problem from R^3 to body boundaries. Results present the significant effect of phase angle on the propulsion characteristics of oscillating fluke.展开更多
Small and micro unmanned aircraft are the focus of scientific interest due to their wide range of applications.They often operate in a highly unstable flight environment where the application of new morphing wing tech...Small and micro unmanned aircraft are the focus of scientific interest due to their wide range of applications.They often operate in a highly unstable flight environment where the application of new morphing wing technologies offers the opportunity to improve flight characteristics.The investigated concept comprises port and starboard adjustable wings,and an adaptive elastoflexible membrane serves as the lifting surface.The focus is on the benefits of the deforming membrane during the impact of a one-minus-cosine type gust.At a low Reynolds number of Re=264000,the morphing wing model is investigated numerically by unsteady fluid-structure interaction simulations.First,the numerical results are validated by experimental data from force and moment,flow field,and deformation measurements.Second,with the rigid wing as the baseline,the flexible case is investigated,focusing on the advantages of the elastic membrane.For all configurations studied,the maximum amplitude of the lift coefficient under gust load shows good agreement between the experimental and numerical results.During the decay of the gust,they differ more the higher the aspect ratio of the wing.When considering the flow field,the main differences are due to the separation behavior on the upper side of the wing.The flow reattaches earlier in the experiments than in the simulations,which explains the higher lift values observed in the former.Only at one intermediate configuration does the lift amplitude of the rigid configuration exceeds that of the flexible by about 12%,with the elastic membrane resulting in a smaller and more uniform peak load,which is also evident in the wing loading and hence in the root bending moment.展开更多
The relationship between stiffness distribution and aeroelastic performance for a beam-frame model and a3-D model is investigated based on aeroelastic optimization of global stiffness design for high-aspect-ratio wing...The relationship between stiffness distribution and aeroelastic performance for a beam-frame model and a3-D model is investigated based on aeroelastic optimization of global stiffness design for high-aspect-ratio wings.The sensitivity information of wing spanwise stiffness distribution with respect to the twist angle at wing tip,the vertical displacement at wing tip,and the flutter speed are obtained using a sensitivity method for both models.Then the relationship between stiffness distribution and aeroelastic performance is summarized to guide the design procedure.By using the genetic/sensitivity-based hybrid algorithm,an optimal solution satisfying the strength,aeroelastic and manufacturing constraints is obtained.It is found that the summarized guidance is well consistent with the optimal solution,thus providing a valuable design advice with efficiency.The study also shows that the aeroelastic-optimization-based global stiffness design procedure can obtain the optimal solution under multiple constraints with high efficiency and precision,thereby having a strong application value in engineering.展开更多
The multi-body flexible morphing airfoil can improve the aerodynamic characteristics based on different flight missions continuously.Recently researches have focused on the unsteady aerodynamic characteristics of flex...The multi-body flexible morphing airfoil can improve the aerodynamic characteristics based on different flight missions continuously.Recently researches have focused on the unsteady aerodynamic characteristics of flexible wings under passive actuation.However,the unsteady aerodynamic characteristics with the fluid-structure interaction effects in the multi-body active actuation process of morphing airfoil deserve further investigation.In this paper,a fluid-structure coupled simulation method for multi-body flexible morphing airfoil with active actuation subsystem was investigated,and the aerodynamic characteristics during deformation were compared with different skin flexibility,flow field environment,actuation mode and actuation time.The numerical results show that for the steady aerodynamic,the skin flexibility can improve the stability efficiency.In the unsteady process,the change trend of the transient lift coefficient and pitching moment are consistent with those of the active drive characteristics,while the instantaneous lift-drag ratio coefficient is greatly affected by the driving mode and can be improved by increasing the driving duration.展开更多
Flexible wings of insects and bio-inspired micro air vehicles generally deform remarkably during flapping flight owing to aerodynamic and inertial forces,which is of highly nonlinear fluid-structure interaction(FSI)...Flexible wings of insects and bio-inspired micro air vehicles generally deform remarkably during flapping flight owing to aerodynamic and inertial forces,which is of highly nonlinear fluid-structure interaction(FSI)problems.To elucidate the novel mechanisms associated with flexible wing aerodynamics in the low Reynolds number regime,we have built up a FSI model of a hawkmoth wing undergoing revolving and made an investigation on the effects of flexible wing deformation on aerodynamic performance of the revolving wing model.To take into account the characteristics of flapping wing kinematics we designed a kinematic model for the revolving wing in two-fold:acceleration and steady rotation,which are based on hovering wing kinematics of hawkmoth,Manduca sexta.Our results show that both aerodynamic and inertial forces demonstrate a pronounced increase during acceleration phase,which results in a significant wing deformation.While the aerodynamic force turns to reduce after the wing acceleration terminates due to the burst and detachment of leading-edge vortices(LEVs),the dynamic wing deformation seem to delay the burst of LEVs and hence to augment the aerodynamic force during and even after the acceleration.During the phase of steady rotation,the flexible wing model generates more ver-tical force at higher angles of attack(40°–60°)but less horizontal force than those of a rigid wing model.This is because the wing twist in spanwise owing to aerodynamic forces results in a reduction in the effective angle of attack at wing tip,which leads to enhancing the aerodynamics performance by increasing the vertical force while reducing the horizontal force.Moreover,our results point out the importance of the fluid-structure interaction in evaluating flexible wing aerodynamics:the wing deformation does play a significant role in enhancing the aerodynamic performances but works differently during acceleration and steady rotation,which is mainly induced by inertial force in acceleration but by aerodynamic forces in steady rotation.展开更多
In order to design and verify control algorithms for flapping wing aerial vehicles(FWAVs),calculation models of the translational force,rotational force and virtual mass force were established with the basis on the mo...In order to design and verify control algorithms for flapping wing aerial vehicles(FWAVs),calculation models of the translational force,rotational force and virtual mass force were established with the basis on the modified quasi-steady aerodynamic theory and high lift mechanisms of insect flight.The simulation results show that the rotational force and virtual mass force can be ignored in the hovering FWAVs with simple harmonic motions in a cycle.The effects of the wing deformation on aerodynamic forces were investigated by regarding the maximum rotational angle of wingtip as a reference variable.The simulation results also show that the average lift coefficient increases and drag coefficient decreases with the increase of the maximum rotational angle of wingtip in the range of 0-90°.展开更多
基金a Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) project sponsored by AFOSR
文摘Micro air vehicles (MAV's) have the potential to revolutionize our sensing and information gathering capabilities in environmental monitoring and homeland security areas. Due to the MAV's' small size, flight regime, and modes of operation, significant scientific advancement will be needed to create this revolutionary capability. Aerodynamics, structural dynamics, and flight dynamics of natural flyers intersects with some of the richest problems in MAV's, inclu- ding massively unsteady three-dimensional separation, transition in boundary layers and shear layers, vortical flows and bluff body flows, unsteady flight environment, aeroelasticity, and nonlinear and adaptive control are just a few examples. A challenge is that the scaling of both fluid dynamics and structural dynamics between smaller natural flyer and practical flying hardware/lab experiment (larger dimension) is fundamentally difficult. In this paper, we offer an overview of the challenges and issues, along with sample results illustrating some of the efforts made from a computational modeling angle.
文摘Winged animals such as insects are capable of flying and surviving in an unsteady and unpredictable aerial environment.They generate and control aerodynamic forces by flapping their flexible wings.While the dynamic shape changes of their flapping wings are known to enhance the efficiency of their flight,they can also affect the stability of a flapping wing flyer under unpredictable disturbances by responding to the sudden changes of aerodynamic forces on the wing.In order to test the hypothesis,the gust response of flexible flapping wings is investigated numerically with a specific focus on the passive maintenance of aerodynamic forces by the wing flexibility.The computational model is based on a dynamic flight simulator that can incorporate the realistic morphology,the kinematics,the structural dynamics,the aerodynamics and the fluid-structure interactions of a hovering hawkmoth.The longitudinal gusts are imposed against the tethered model of a hovering hawkmoth with flexible flapping wings.It is found that the aerodynamic forces on the flapping wings are affected by the gust,because of the increase or decrease in relative wingtip velocity or kinematic angle of attack.The passive shape change of flexible wings can,however,reduce the changes in the magnitude and direction of aerodynamic forces by the gusts from various directions,except for the downward gust.Such adaptive response of the flexible structure to stabilise the attitude can be classified into the mechanical feedback,which works passively with minimal delay,and is of great importance to the design of bio-inspired flapping wings for micro-air vehicles.
基金Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.62271400).
文摘In order to get an effective solution of the in-flight wing deformation measurement for high-wing aircrafts with high-aspect-ratio,a method based on three-dimensional(3D)speckle correlation technique is proposed.Firstly,an in-flight wing deformation measurement system with two sets of conjugate cameras is designed based on structural characteristics and test requirements of high-wing aircrafts with large-aspect-ratio.Secondly,the in-flight wing deformation measurement method based on 3D speckle correlation technique is introduced including three aspects:measuring system and wing datum calibration,speckle image matching and 3D reconstruction,and wing deformation analysis.Fi-nally,ground simulation test of dynamic deformation measurement of a scaled model wing and flight test of dynamic deformation measurement of a large transport wing are carried out.The test results show that the measuring accuracy of single point coordinate in ground simulation test is better than 0.1 mm/m,in the airborne vibration environment,the static single-point positioning accuracy is bet-ter than 5 mm,and the in-flight wing deformation measurement data is well received by the flight test engineers.This method can satisfy the requirements of stability,reliability,high precision,non-con-tact and full-field measurement for dynamic deformation measurement of aircraft wing with high-as-pect-ratio.
文摘In this paper, the propulsion performance of a spanwise flexible oscillating wing, which is broadly similar to the undulation of a fin fluke, is investigated. The geometry of the fluke underwent three prescribed harmonic oscillating motions simultaneously while surging with constant velocity. The effect of deflection phase angle, flexibility parameter, and wing tip deflection amplitude on thrust coefficient and swimming efficiency was studied. A low-order unsteady panel method coupled with a time stepping algorithm for free wake alignment is implemented in a computer program to estimate the propulsion efficiency of lifting bodies. A novel approach is introduced to evaluate the singular integrals of line vortices by using an adaptive mollifier function. This method is an efficient way to accelerate computational speed by reducing the order of problem from R^3 to body boundaries. Results present the significant effect of phase angle on the propulsion characteristics of oscillating fluke.
基金funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft(DFG,German Research Foundation)(No.BR 1511/12-1)。
文摘Small and micro unmanned aircraft are the focus of scientific interest due to their wide range of applications.They often operate in a highly unstable flight environment where the application of new morphing wing technologies offers the opportunity to improve flight characteristics.The investigated concept comprises port and starboard adjustable wings,and an adaptive elastoflexible membrane serves as the lifting surface.The focus is on the benefits of the deforming membrane during the impact of a one-minus-cosine type gust.At a low Reynolds number of Re=264000,the morphing wing model is investigated numerically by unsteady fluid-structure interaction simulations.First,the numerical results are validated by experimental data from force and moment,flow field,and deformation measurements.Second,with the rigid wing as the baseline,the flexible case is investigated,focusing on the advantages of the elastic membrane.For all configurations studied,the maximum amplitude of the lift coefficient under gust load shows good agreement between the experimental and numerical results.During the decay of the gust,they differ more the higher the aspect ratio of the wing.When considering the flow field,the main differences are due to the separation behavior on the upper side of the wing.The flow reattaches earlier in the experiments than in the simulations,which explains the higher lift values observed in the former.Only at one intermediate configuration does the lift amplitude of the rigid configuration exceeds that of the flexible by about 12%,with the elastic membrane resulting in a smaller and more uniform peak load,which is also evident in the wing loading and hence in the root bending moment.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos.11302011,11372023, 11172025)
文摘The relationship between stiffness distribution and aeroelastic performance for a beam-frame model and a3-D model is investigated based on aeroelastic optimization of global stiffness design for high-aspect-ratio wings.The sensitivity information of wing spanwise stiffness distribution with respect to the twist angle at wing tip,the vertical displacement at wing tip,and the flutter speed are obtained using a sensitivity method for both models.Then the relationship between stiffness distribution and aeroelastic performance is summarized to guide the design procedure.By using the genetic/sensitivity-based hybrid algorithm,an optimal solution satisfying the strength,aeroelastic and manufacturing constraints is obtained.It is found that the summarized guidance is well consistent with the optimal solution,thus providing a valuable design advice with efficiency.The study also shows that the aeroelastic-optimization-based global stiffness design procedure can obtain the optimal solution under multiple constraints with high efficiency and precision,thereby having a strong application value in engineering.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Nos.52192633,11872293)the Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province,China(No.2022JC-03)。
文摘The multi-body flexible morphing airfoil can improve the aerodynamic characteristics based on different flight missions continuously.Recently researches have focused on the unsteady aerodynamic characteristics of flexible wings under passive actuation.However,the unsteady aerodynamic characteristics with the fluid-structure interaction effects in the multi-body active actuation process of morphing airfoil deserve further investigation.In this paper,a fluid-structure coupled simulation method for multi-body flexible morphing airfoil with active actuation subsystem was investigated,and the aerodynamic characteristics during deformation were compared with different skin flexibility,flow field environment,actuation mode and actuation time.The numerical results show that for the steady aerodynamic,the skin flexibility can improve the stability efficiency.In the unsteady process,the change trend of the transient lift coefficient and pitching moment are consistent with those of the active drive characteristics,while the instantaneous lift-drag ratio coefficient is greatly affected by the driving mode and can be improved by increasing the driving duration.
基金supported by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research(21360078 and 18100002)Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas(24120007,JSPS)
文摘Flexible wings of insects and bio-inspired micro air vehicles generally deform remarkably during flapping flight owing to aerodynamic and inertial forces,which is of highly nonlinear fluid-structure interaction(FSI)problems.To elucidate the novel mechanisms associated with flexible wing aerodynamics in the low Reynolds number regime,we have built up a FSI model of a hawkmoth wing undergoing revolving and made an investigation on the effects of flexible wing deformation on aerodynamic performance of the revolving wing model.To take into account the characteristics of flapping wing kinematics we designed a kinematic model for the revolving wing in two-fold:acceleration and steady rotation,which are based on hovering wing kinematics of hawkmoth,Manduca sexta.Our results show that both aerodynamic and inertial forces demonstrate a pronounced increase during acceleration phase,which results in a significant wing deformation.While the aerodynamic force turns to reduce after the wing acceleration terminates due to the burst and detachment of leading-edge vortices(LEVs),the dynamic wing deformation seem to delay the burst of LEVs and hence to augment the aerodynamic force during and even after the acceleration.During the phase of steady rotation,the flexible wing model generates more ver-tical force at higher angles of attack(40°–60°)but less horizontal force than those of a rigid wing model.This is because the wing twist in spanwise owing to aerodynamic forces results in a reduction in the effective angle of attack at wing tip,which leads to enhancing the aerodynamics performance by increasing the vertical force while reducing the horizontal force.Moreover,our results point out the importance of the fluid-structure interaction in evaluating flexible wing aerodynamics:the wing deformation does play a significant role in enhancing the aerodynamic performances but works differently during acceleration and steady rotation,which is mainly induced by inertial force in acceleration but by aerodynamic forces in steady rotation.
基金National Natural Science Foundation of China(5177041109)。
文摘In order to design and verify control algorithms for flapping wing aerial vehicles(FWAVs),calculation models of the translational force,rotational force and virtual mass force were established with the basis on the modified quasi-steady aerodynamic theory and high lift mechanisms of insect flight.The simulation results show that the rotational force and virtual mass force can be ignored in the hovering FWAVs with simple harmonic motions in a cycle.The effects of the wing deformation on aerodynamic forces were investigated by regarding the maximum rotational angle of wingtip as a reference variable.The simulation results also show that the average lift coefficient increases and drag coefficient decreases with the increase of the maximum rotational angle of wingtip in the range of 0-90°.