Based on observations of flying birds and insects, and swimming fish, flapping wings have been recognized to be more efficient than conventional propellers for flights of very small scale vehicles, so-called micro-air vehicles (MAVs) with wing spans of 15 cm or less. The current interest in the research and development community is to find the most energy efficient airfoil adaptation and flapping wing motion technologies capable of providing the required aerodynamic performance for a MAV flight. The path of dual airfoils in a biplane configuration undergoing a combined, non-sinusoidal pitching and plunging motion is optimized for maximum thrust and/or propulsive efficiency. The non-sinusoidal, periodic flapping motion is described using Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines (NURBS). A gradient based algorithm is then employed for the optimization of the NURBS parameters. Unsteady, low speed laminar flows are computed using a Navier-Stokes solver in a parallel computing environment based on domain decomposition. The numerical evaluation of the gradient vector components, which requires unsteady flow solutions, is also performed in parallel. It is shown that the thrust generation may significantly be increased in comparison to the sinusoidal flapping motion.
Non-sinusoidal path optimization of dual airfoils flapping in a biplane configuration
Optimierung des Bewegungsablaufs der Tragflügel eines Mikroflugkörpers zur energieeffizienten Schuberzeugung
2008
8 Seiten, 7 Bilder, 2 Tabellen, 21 Quellen
Aufsatz (Konferenz)
Englisch
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