Aerodynamic characteristics of the ventilated design for flapping wing micro air vehicle

Abstract

Inspired by superior flight performance of natural flight masters like birds and insects and based on the ventilating flaps that can be opened and closed by the changing air pressure around the wing, a new flapping wing type has been proposed. It is known that the net lift force generated by a solid wing in a flapping cycle is nearly zero. However, for the case of the ventilated wing, results for the net lift force are positive which is due to the effect created by the "ventilation" in reducing negative lift force during the upstroke. The presence of moving flaps can serve as the variable in which, through careful control of the areas, a correlation with the decrease in negative lift can be generated. The corresponding aerodynamic characteristics have been investigated numerically by using different flapping frequencies and forward flight speeds. © 2014 G. Q. Zhang and S. C. M. Yu.