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ACTA AERONAUTICAET ASTRONAUTICA SINICA ›› 2023, Vol. 44 ›› Issue (12): 127779-127779.doi: 10.7527/S1000-6893.2022.27779

• Fluid Mechanics and Flight Mechanics • Previous Articles    

Effect of stiffness and wingtip shape on aerodynamic lift and efficiency of flapping wing rotors

Yuanyuan HE(), Hang ZHANG, Qichen WANG, Xuan YANG   

  1. School of Aerospace Engineering,Beijing Institute of Technology,Beijing 100081,China
  • Received:2022-07-08 Revised:2022-08-30 Accepted:2022-10-25 Online:2022-11-07 Published:2022-11-04
  • Contact: Yuanyuan HE E-mail:appleyuanyuan@bit.edu.cn
  • Supported by:
    National Natural Science Foundation of China(11972079)

Abstract:

The influence of stiffness distribution and shape of a Flapping Wing Rotor (FWR) on aerodynamic lift and efficiency is significantly different from that of the traditional insect like Flapping Wing (FW) in vertical take-off and landing and hovering. An experimental study was carried out to evaluate the effect of stiffness and wingtip shape of the FWR on its aerodynamic lift and efficiency in hovering. Based on a conventional rectangular shape, 12 wing test samples with different structural configurations and wingtip sweep angles were made, and were compared with a sample of dragonfly-like wing shape. Effect of spanwise and chordwise stiffness, wing tip stiffness and wing tip shape on motion, aerodynamic lift and efficiency of flapping wing rotor measured and analyzed through experimental tests. The test results show that chordwise stiffness and wingtip shape have significant effect on the FWR motion. An optimal spanwise and chordwise stiffness distribution to support the membrane skin and a dragonfly-like wingtip shape can increase the FWR aerodynamic lift and efficiency significantly. An FWR test model of 30.1 g was used in the study as an example. With an input voltage of 3.4 V, the test sample that was finally evolved into an optimal bionic wing produced an average lift (49.6 g), which is 74% higher than the original rectangular wing, and the lift efficiency is increased from 3.5 g/W to 5.9 g/W. This research is of great significance to improving the aerodynamic performance of FWR-MAVs.

Key words: FWR-MAV, bionic flapping wing rotor, flapping wing rotor stiffness, wingtip shape, aerodynamic lift, lift experiment

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