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Wake of a bio-inspired flapping wing with morphing wingspan

变翼展的仿生扑翼尾迹特征

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Abstract

This work uses a bio-inspired flapping wing model to numerically investigate the effect of morphing wingspan on wake structures. The model consists of a rectangular flat-plate wing heaving harmonically in a uniform incoming flow at the Reynolds number of 300 and Strouhal number of 0.3. The wingspan changes during heaving, with a maximum wingspan at the middle of downstroke and minimum wingspan at the middle of upstroke. The wake is characterized by two oblique chains of interconnected vortex loops. Although the morphing wingspan has little effect on the wake topology, it significantly affects the magnitude and size of the vortices near the wing surface, which leads to an asymmetric distribution of vortex loop chains in the wake. The shrinking of leading-edge vortex under the lower surface of the wing in downstroke and the destructive interaction of tip vortices in upstroke are identified as the two vortex dynamics corresponding to the asymmetric wake structures. The analysis on the lift coefficients shows that the above vortex interactions are mainly caused by the change of span length instead of spanwise velocity.

摘要

本文基于仿生扑翼流动的数值模拟研究变形翼展对尾迹结构的影响. 所采用的扑翼模型为一个在均匀来流中上下扑动的平 板. 翼展随着扑动而变化, 最大翼展在下扑行程的中间, 最小翼展在上挥行程的中间. 其尾迹的特征表现为两条相互连接的倾斜涡链. 虽然变形翼展对尾流拓扑结构的影响不大, 但它显著影响了扑翼附近涡结构, 导致尾流中涡环链的分布不对称. 下扑过程中, 位于扑翼 下表面的前缘涡收缩, 与上挥中翼尖涡相互作用, 通过分析升力系数, 发现上述涡的相互作用是由翼展长度的变化引起的.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Basic Science Center Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China for “Multiscale Problems in Nonlinear Mechanics” (Grant No. 11988102), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 12102439, 92252203, and 91952301), and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No. 2021M703290). The computations were conducted on Tianhe-3F at the National Supercomputer Center in Tianjin.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The State Key Laboratory of Nonlinear Mechanics, Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    Xinyi He  (何心怡), Yi Liu  (刘毅), Yixin Chen  (陈一鑫) & Shizhao Wang  (王士召)

  2. School of Engineering Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 101408, China

    Yixin Chen  (陈一鑫) & Shizhao Wang  (王士召)

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  1. Xinyi He  (何心怡)
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  2. Yi Liu  (刘毅)
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  3. Yixin Chen  (陈一鑫)
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Contributions

Xinyi He: Writing–original draft, Investigation, Validation. Yi Liu: Formal analysis, Software. Yixin Chen: Visualization, Data curation. Shizhao Wang: Conceptualization, Writing–review & editing, Supervision, Funding acquisition.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shizhao Wang  (王士召).

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He, X., Liu, Y., Chen, Y. et al. Wake of a bio-inspired flapping wing with morphing wingspan. Acta Mech. Sin. 39, 323061 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10409-023-23061-x

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