Showing papers on "Aerodynamic force published in 2012"

Unsteady force generation and vortex dynamics of pitching and plunging aerofoils

Abstract: Experimental studies of the flow topology, leading-edge vortex dynamics and unsteady force produced by pitching and plunging flat-plate aerofoils in forward flight at Reynolds numbers in the range 5000–20 000 are described. We consider the effects of varying frequency and plunge amplitude for the same effective angle-of-attack time history. The effective angle-of-attack history is a sinusoidal oscillation in the range to with mean of and amplitude of . The reduced frequency is varied in the range 0.314–1.0 and the Strouhal number range is 0.10–0.48. Results show that for constant effective angle of attack, the flow evolution is independent of Strouhal number, and as the reduced frequency is increased the leading-edge vortex (LEV) separates later in phase during the downstroke. The LEV trajectory, circulation and area are reported. It is shown that the effective angle of attack and reduced frequency determine the flow evolution, and the Strouhal number is the main parameter determining the aerodynamic force acting on the aerofoil. At low Strouhal numbers, the lift coefficient is proportional to the effective angle of attack, indicating the validity of the quasi-steady approximation. Large values of force coefficients () are measured at high Strouhal number. The measurement results are compared with linear potential flow theory and found to be in reasonable agreement. During the downstroke, when the LEV is present, better agreement is found when the wake effect is ignored for both the lift and drag coefficients.

Aerodynamic performance of a hovering hawkmoth with flexible wings: a computational approach

Abstract: Insect wings are deformable structures that change shape passively and dynamically owing to inertial and aerodynamic forces during flight. It is still unclear how the three-dimensional and passive change of wing kinematics owing to inherent wing flexibility contributes to unsteady aerodynamics and energetics in insect flapping flight. Here, we perform a systematic fluid-structure interaction based analysis on the aerodynamic performance of a hovering hawkmoth, Manduca, with an integrated computational model of a hovering insect with rigid and flexible wings. Aerodynamic performance of flapping wings with passive deformation or prescribed deformation is evaluated in terms of aerodynamic force, power and efficiency. Our results reveal that wing flexibility can increase downwash in wake and hence aerodynamic force: first, a dynamic wing bending is observed, which delays the breakdown of leading edge vortex near the wing tip, responsible for augmenting the aerodynamic force-production; second, a combination of the dynamic change of wing bending and twist favourably modifies the wing kinematics in the distal area, which leads to the aerodynamic force enhancement immediately before stroke reversal. Moreover, an increase in hovering efficiency of the flexible wing is achieved as a result of the wing twist. An extensive study of wing stiffness effect on aerodynamic performance is further conducted through a tuning of Young's modulus and thickness, indicating that insect wing structures may be optimized not only in terms of aerodynamic performance but also dependent on many factors, such as the wing strength, the circulation capability of wing veins and the control of wing movements.

Dynamic pitching of an elastic rectangular wing in hovering motion

Abstract: In order to study the role of the passive deformation in the aerodynamics of insect wings, we computationally model the three-dimensional fluid–structure interaction of an elastic rectangular wing at a low aspect ratio during hovering flight. The code couples a viscous incompressible flow solver based on the immersed-boundary method and a nonlinear finite-element solver for thin-walled structures. During a flapping stroke, the wing surface is dominated by non-uniform chordwise deformations. The effects of the wing stiffness, mass ratio, phase angle of active pitching, and Reynolds number are investigated. The results show that both the phase and the rate of passive pitching due to the wing flexibility can significantly modify the aerodynamics of the wing. The dynamic pitching depends not only on the specified kinematics at the wing root and the stiffness of the wing, but also greatly on the mass ratio, which represents the relative importance of the wing inertia and aerodynamic forces in the wing deformation. We use the ratio between the flapping frequency, , and natural frequency of the wing, , as the non-dimensional stiffness. In general, when , the deformation significantly enhances the lift and also improves the lift efficiency despite a disadvantageous camber. In particular, when the inertial pitching torque is assisted by an aerodynamic torque of comparable magnitude, the lift efficiency can be markedly improved.

Power harvesting from transverse galloping of square cylinder

Abstract: The concept of exploiting galloping of square cylinders to harvest energy is investigated. The energy is harvested by attaching a piezoelectric transducer to the transverse degree of freedom. A representative model that accounts for the coupled cylinder displacement and harvested voltage is used to determine the levels of the harvested power. The focus is on the effect of the Reynolds number on the aerodynamic force, the onset of galloping, and the level of the harvested power. The quasi steady approximation is used to model the aerodynamic loads. A linear analysis is performed to determine the effects of the electrical load resistance and the Reynolds number on the onset of galloping, which is due to a Hopf bifurcation. We derive the normal form of the dynamic system near the onset of galloping to characterize the type of the instability and to determine the effects of the system parameters on its outputs near the bifurcation. The results show that the electrical load resistance and the Reynolds number play an important role in determining the level of the harvested power and the onset of galloping. The results also show that the maximum levels of harvested power are accompanied with minimum transverse displacements for both low- and high-Reynolds number configurations.

Model-Predictive Gust Load Alleviation Controller for a Highly Flexible Aircraft

Abstract: In this paper, a gust load alleviation system based on model-predictive control is developed for a very flexible aircraft. Two main contributions presented in this work are as follows. First, a unified dynamics framework is developed to represent the full six-degrees-of-freedom rigid body alongwith the structural dynamics. This allows for an integrated control design to account for maneuverability (flying qualities) and aeroelasticity simultaneously, leading to a new and improved configuration for a very flexible aircraft. Second, an improved model-predictive control formulation is proposed for stabilization and gust load alleviation. The performance of the model-predictive control is further improved by introducing an additional feedback loop to increase the prediction accuracy. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, the integrated formulation is compared with existing approaches. Further, the load alleviation performance is evaluated for various discrete and continuous gusts.

The kinematics of falling maple seeds and the initial transition to a helical motion

Abstract: A maple seed falls in a characteristic helical motion. A crude analogy with autorotation of a wind turbine suggests that the torque due to the aerodynamic force would initiate the gyration of the seed. We were therefore surprised that a seed with a torn wing gyrates in a similar manner as a full-winged seed. In fact, a seed with only a sliver of leading edge can still gyrate. Thus the gyrating motion appears not to fully depend on the aerodynamic force. If, on the other hand, the aerodynamic force is completely absent, a seed would fall from rest like a rock in a vacuum. To investigate how the seed reaches its steady helical motion, we use a high-speed digital camera to film the intact and cut seeds at 1000 Hz. With a mirror, the camera records two views simultaneously so that we can extract the 3D kinematics of the wing. We tracked the centre of mass and quantified the descending speed, the azimuthal rotation, and the cone angle for seeds with wings of different shapes. We found that the initial transition from rest to a steady gyration occurs in three steps: a tumble about the span-wise direction, followed by a tilt towards the vertical axis, leading to the gyration about the vertical axis and an opening of the cone angle before settling into a steady state. We offer a new explanation for the cause of the auto-gyration that accounts for these three stages.

Lift Evaluation of a 2D Flapping Flat Plate

Abstract: Several previous experimental and theoretical studies have shown that a leading edge vortex (LEV) on an airfoil or wing can provide lift enhancement. In this paper, unsteady 2D potential flow theory is employed to model the flow field of a flapping flat plate wing. A multi-vortices model is developed to model both the leading edge and trailing edge vortices (TEVs), which offers improved accuracy compared with using only single vortex at each separation location. The lift is obtained by integrating the unsteady Blasius equation. It is found that the motion of vortices contributes significantly to the overall aerodynamic force on the flat plate. The shedding of TEVs and the stabilization of LEVs explicitly contributes to lift enhancement. A Kutta-like condition is used to determine the vortex intensity and location at the leading edge for large angle of attack cases; however, it is proposed to relax this condition for small angle of attack cases and apply a 2D shear layer model to calculate the circulation of the new added vortex. The results of the simulation are then compared with classical numerical, modeled and experimental data for canonical unsteady flat plat problems. Good agreement with these data is observed. Moreover, these results suggested that the leading edge vortex shedding for small angles of attack should be modeled differently than that for large angles of attack. Finally, the results of vortex motion vs. lift indicate that both a motion against the streamwise direction of the LEV and a streamwise motion of the TEV contributes positive lift. This also provides the insights for future active flow control of MAVs that the formation and shedding process of LEVs and TEVs can be manipulated to provide lift enhancement.

Multiple Satellite Formation Flying Using Differential Aerodynamic Drag

Abstract: In this paper, the use of differential aerodynamic drag is proposed for multiple satellite formation flying in low Earth orbit. The nonlinear dynamics describing the motion of the follower satellite relative to the leader satellite is considered, and the control methodology is developed based on sliding mode control. The stability of such a formation in the presence of external perturbations is analyzed. Several cases are considered to examine the performance of the proposed control strategy to maintain the relative motion of the follower satellites by correcting for any initial offset errors and external perturbation effects that tend to perturb the formation. Results of the numerical simulation along with hardware-in-the loop testing confirm that the suggested methodology using differential aerodynamic drag yields reasonable formation-keeping precision and its effectiveness in ensuring formation maneuvering.

Effect of a Nonlinear Constitutive Relation for Turbulence Modeling on Predicting Flow Separation at Wing-Body Juncture of Transonic Commercial Aircraft

Abstract: This paper presents an improvement in numerical prediction of aerodynamic characteristics for transonic commercial aircraft using the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations. With turbulence models base on the Boussinesq eddy-viscosity approximation, the shock-induced flow-separation at wing-body juncture-corner is sometimes overestimated at higher angle-of-attack, which often results in wrong prediction of aerodynamic force and moment of aircraft. To improve it, we focus on effect of anisotropy in the Reynolds stress at the corner flow. A simple nonlinear constitutive relation is employed to introduce the anisotropy of the Reynolds stress for the turbulence models. The obtained results show that the size of the flow separation considerably shrinks with the nonlinear model and fairly good comparison with experimental results. The detailed flow in boundary-layer at the corner is discussed for better understanding of physics that results in the improvement of prediction.

Investigation on high angle of attack characteristics of hypersonic space vehicle

Abstract: The high angle of attack characteristics play an important role in the aerodynamic performances of the hypersonic space vehicle. The three-dimensional Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations and the two-equation RNG k-ɛ-turbulence model have been employed to investigate the influence of the high angle of attack on the lift-to-drag ratio and the flow field characteristics of the hypersonic space vehicle, and the contributions of each component to the aerodynamic forces of the vehicle have been discussed as well. At the same time, in order to validate the numerical method, the predicted results have been compared with the available experimental data of a hypersonic slender vehicle, and the grid independency has been analyzed. The obtained results show that the predicted lift-to-drag ratio and pitching moment coefficient show very good agreement with the experimental data in the open literature, and the grid system makes only a slight difference to the numerical results. There exists an optimal angle of attack for the aerodynamic performance of the hypersonic space vehicle, and its value is 20°. When the angle of attack is 20°, the high pressure does not leak from around the leading edge to the upper surface. With the further increasing of the angle of attack, the high pressure spreads from the wing tips to the central area of the vehicle, and overflows from the leading edge again. Further, the head plays an important role in the drag performance of the vehicle, and the lift percentage of the flaperon is larger than that of the rudderevator. This illustrates that the optimization of the flaperon configuration is a great work for the improvement of the aerodynamic performance of the hypersonic space vehicle, especially for a high lift-to-drag ratio.

Adaptive Reduced-Order-Model-Based Control-Law Design for Active Flutter Suppression

Abstract: The design of classic active flutter controllers has often been based on low-fidelity and low-accuracy linear aerodynamic models. Most of these models were usually treated as a linear time-invariant system, without considering time-varying parameters, such as the Mach number, the angle of attack, the Reynolds numbers, etc. A high-fidelity reduced-order model based on the proper orthogonal decomposition adaptation algorithm is used to develop a new general linear parameter-varying aeroservoelastic model with aerodynamic nonlinearity. A robust gain-scheduling control-law design method for active flutter suppression based on the proposed linear parametervarying model is investigated. The proposed design method is demonstrated with the Goland wing aeroelastic model. The simulation results show that the linear parameter-varying gain-scheduled controller can effectively suppress flutter over a range of airspeeds, and the flutter boundary in the transonic regime is simultaneously increased by nearly 20% to 30%.

Tomographic particle image velocimetry of desert locust wakes: instantaneous volumes combine to reveal hidden vortex elements and rapid wake deformation.

Abstract: Aerodynamic structures generated by animals in flight are unstable and complex. Recent progress in quantitative flow visualization has advanced our understanding of animal aerodynamics, but measurements have hitherto been limited to flow velocities at a plane through the wake. We applied an emergent, high-speed, volumetric fluid imaging technique (tomographic particle image velocimetry) to examine segments of the wake of desert locusts, capturing fully three-dimensional instantaneous flow fields. We used those flow fields to characterize the aerodynamic footprint in unprecedented detail and revealed previously unseen wake elements that would have gone undetected by two-dimensional or stereo-imaging technology. Vortex iso-surface topographies show the spatio-temporal signature of aerodynamic force generation manifest in the wake of locusts, and expose the extent to which animal wakes can deform, potentially leading to unreliable calculations of lift and thrust when using conventional diagnostic methods. We discuss implications for experimental design and analysis as volumetric flow imaging becomes more widespread.

Effects of structural flexibility of wings in flapping flight of butterfly

Abstract: The objective of this paper is to clarify the effects of structural flexibility of wings of a butterfly in flapping flight. For this purpose, a dynamics model of a butterfly is derived by Lagrange's method, where the butterfly is considered as a rigid multi-body system. The panel method is employed to simulate the flow field and the aerodynamic forces acting on the wings. The mathematical model is validated by the agreement of the numerical result with the experimentally measured data. Then, periodic orbits of flapping-of-wings flights are parametrically searched in order to fly the butterfly models. Almost periodic orbits are found, but they are unstable. Deformation of the wings is modeled in two ways. One is bending and its effect on the aerodynamic forces is discussed. The other is passive wing torsion caused by structural flexibility. Numerical simulations demonstrate that flexible torsion reduces the flight instability.

Kinematic control of aerodynamic forces on an inclined flapping wing with asymmetric strokes

Abstract: In the present study, we conduct an experiment using a one-paired dynamically scaled model of an insect wing, to investigate how asymmetric strokes with different wing kinematic parameters are used to control the aerodynamics of a dragonfly-like inclined flapping wing in still fluid. The kinematic parameters considered are the angles of attack during the mid-downstroke (α(md)) and mid-upstroke (α(mu)), and the duration (Δτ) and time of initiation (τ(p)) of the pitching rotation. The present dragonfly-like inclined flapping wing has the aerodynamic mechanism of unsteady force generation similar to those of other insect wings in a horizontal stroke plane, but the detailed effect of the wing kinematics on the force control is different due to the asymmetric use of the angle of attack during the up- and downstrokes. For example, high α(md) and low α(mu) produces larger vertical force with less aerodynamic power, and low α(md) and high α(mu) is recommended for horizontal force (thrust) production. The pitching rotation also affects the aerodynamics of a flapping wing, but its dynamic rotational effect is much weaker than the effect from the kinematic change in the angle of attack caused by the pitching rotation. Thus, the influences of the duration and timing of pitching rotation for the present inclined flapping wing are found to be very different from those for a horizontal flapping wing. That is, for the inclined flapping motion, the advanced and delayed rotations produce smaller vertical forces than the symmetric one and the effect of pitching duration is very small. On the other hand, for a specific range of pitching rotation timing, delayed rotation requires less aerodynamic power than the symmetric rotation. As for the horizontal force, delayed rotation with low α(md) and high α(mu) is recommended for long-duration flight owing to its high efficiency, and advanced rotation should be employed for hovering flight for nearly zero horizontal force. The present study suggests that manipulating the angle of attack during a flapping cycle is the most effective way to control the aerodynamic forces and corresponding power expenditure for a dragonfly-like inclined flapping wing.