Aerodynamic and Structural analysis of bio-mimetic corrugated wing

Abstract

This work includes the aerodynamic and static structural analysis of newly designed bio-mimetic corrugated aerofoil inspired from dragonfly forewing. Dragonfly corrugated aerofoil structure used in this research comprised of basal wing section located near the radius of the forewing. These corrugations define the stressed skin structure composed of griderlike veins structure and thin cuticle membrane which provides sophisticated mechanical advantage for resisting longitudinal bending while facilitating wing camber and torsion. Dragonflies are known for their impressive flight performance .They carry aerodynamic and inertial loads. A computational analysis is done on a newly designed dragonfly corrugated aerofoil at Reynolds number of 37660, where flow is assumed to be laminar, steady, incompressible and two dimensional. The research comprises of the aerodynamic flow analysis of 2-D dragonfly corrugated aerofoil and static structural analysis using Ansys Fluent and Ansys Mechanical APDL. It is found that the design criteria being used and simulation carried out on corrugated aerofoil is giving much better results compared to earlier studies. The structural analysis also shows that it can resist maximum pressure loads and provides high rigidity to the span of the wing. These finding enhances the knowledge of insect inspired corrugated wing structure and facilitate the application for improved design of artificial wings for MAVs and UAVs.