A Simulation Environment for Aerodynamic Analysis and Design of Flapping Wing Micro Air Vehicles

Abstract

The overall goal of the work conducted in this project was to develop a combined simulation and experimental capability to further the understanding of unsteady wing aerodynamics of flapping micro air vehicles (MAVs) and to assist in design of such vehicles. The primary objective of the overall effort was to develop and validate a simulation environment with high-fidelity modeling of flapping-wing MAV flight physics. The next objective was to study the fluid physics associated with low Reynolds number flapping wings to facilitate the design of effective high-bandwidth control of wing beat kinematics for MAVs. Another objective was to build a fundamental knowledge base for the physics of flapping wing Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs). This Phase 2 work had two major components: (a) Simulation environment based on an advanced Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) solver called Loci-STREAM, and, (b) Experimental effort to validate the simulations and to guide model development.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2010
Accession Number
AD1026545

Entities

People

  • Jeffrey Wright
  • Luis Bernal
  • Siddharth Thakur
  • Wei Shyy

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Autonomy
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aerodynamic Characteristics
  • Aeroelasticity
  • Aircrafts
  • Birds
  • Boundary Layer
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics
  • Experimental Design
  • Fluid Dynamics
  • Fluid Flow
  • Hydrodynamics
  • Lepidoptera
  • Mechanical Properties
  • Reliability
  • Reynolds Number
  • Three Dimensional
  • Turbulent Mixing
  • Two Dimensional

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Aerial Unmanned Vehicle Swarm Micro Periodontal Dentistry.
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)