Uncertainty Quantification for a Flapping Airfoil with a Stochastic Velocity Deviation

Abstract

From the perspective of practical engineering, an outdoor flapping wing micro aerial vehicle (FWMAV) should be capable to withstand unpredictable perturbations in the flight condition. The responses of the time average thrust coefficient and the propulsive efficiency with respect to a stochastic flight velocity deviation were numerically investigated. The deviation is assumed to obey the Gauss distribution with a mean value 0 and a specified standard deviation. The probability distributions of the flapping performances were quantified by the Non-Intrusive Polynomial Chaos method. It is observed that both of the time average thrust coefficient and the propulsive efficiency obey Gauss-like but not the exact Gauss distribution. The velocity deviation has large effect on the time average thrust coefficient and a little effect on the propulsive efficiency.