Influence of wing camber on aerodynamic performance of flapping wing rotor

Abstract

The flapping wing rotor (FWR) is a new type of micro aerial vehicles (MAV), which generates lift through active flapping and passive rotation of antisymmetric wings. Based on the experimental of flapping wings and FWR, the concept of chordwise curved wing is proposed. In this paper, numerical simulations based on Reynolds-averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) equations combined with SST k-ω turbulence model are conducted to study the influence of the height of maximum camber and position of maximum camber on the lift generated by three-wings FWR. Dynamic meshing methods driven by an in-house user-defined function (UDF) are used to model the motion of FWR. The midpoint stroke stage of FWR wings is analyzed in detail. The results show that camber has a great influence on the lift of the FWR. When the maximum camber is less than 0.25c, increase of lift can be achieved for the increase of the maximum camber. And the closer the maximum camber position is to the middle position of the mean aerodynamic chord, the more lift FWR generates.