Propulsive properties of a flexible oscillating wing with time-varying camber deformation

Abstract

In this article, a new conceptual design of flexible oscillating wing with time-varying camber deformation is introduced and the two-dimensional transient numerical simulation has also been conducted to compare the propulsive performance of current flexible oscillating wing with that of conventional rigid oscillating wing by using of the commercial software ANSYS Fluent 18.2 coupled with the dynamic mesh technique at moderate high Reynolds number of 1.0 × 106. In addition, the influence of the deflection amplitude, the deflection frequency as well as the deflection position along the chord length of the wing on the propulsive performance of current flexible oscillating wing have been analyzed. The numerical simulation results demonstrate that the introduction of flexible deformation motion does much good on improving the propulsive performance of oscillating wing and there exists optimum motion parameters leading to the highest propulsive efficiency. Compared with the conventional rigid oscillating wing, the existence of flexible deformation motion presents greater propulsive efficiency by largely increasing the thrust force within the whole period of motion and the maximum value of η can be increased by 28.3% compared with that of conventional rigid wing. Furthermore, the results also reveal that the optimum deflection motion should coincide with the rotation center of rigid motion and that conclusion provides much benefit for the future design of prototype manufacture.