Numerical study of body shape and wing flexibility in fluid structure interaction

Abstract

In this paper, we numerically investigate the impact of body shape and wing orientation upon the flow induced drag forces experienced by a body in its steady state. The current study focuses on simple toy models but derives its motivations from previous reported work on wind-induced drag on birds in flight most of which are experimental in nature. Our numerical results show that body shape/eccentricites, wing length and orientation are all important in determining the forces experienced by a body in a flow. Their geometries and specific features are key to determining the optimal mode of locomotion which is determined by looking at the relationship between drag force, bending behavior versus flow and geometric parameters.