Use of Two Drag Coefficient Concept for the Investigation of Flapping Wings Dynamics
Vibroengineering PROCEDIA 2014
Abdessemed Ahmed Chaouki, Jānis Vība

Micro aerial vehicles design represents a challenge that lasted for years and the fact that they operate in a low Reynolds range, which makes the unsteady aerodynamic effect more influential, made the direct computational fluid dynamics simulation expensive in time and money, and an alternative method especially in the early phase of the design would be very beneficial and rentable. In this work the flight a flapping wings operated micro aerial vehicle was investigated by the simulation of the mechanical equations of motion in order to have an approximation of the true motion behavior and the flying condition of the vehicle, in the same time this approach present a model that can be electronically implemented to make the MAV auto-controlled by imposing some criteria. The equations were developed in spherical coordinates system, and simulated using the software Mathcad, and some of the constant related to the size of the vehicle are variated to match different range of existing flying animals from insects to birds, a concept of two different drag coefficient for the upstroke and down stroke was used successfully to model the flapping wing. And giving the fact that lots of parameter were simplified or neglected which lessen the accuracy, it gave good approximation, and the model can be used for auto-control by predefined flying path. Beside the main simulation work a small experimentation on a model wing covered in feather was conducted in a subsonic wind tunnel in order to present a practical alternative that economize energy by reducing the drag in upstroke, and it was found that the direction of the feather plays a significant role in the drag reduction and we concluded that the use of such materials can greatly improve the performances, and economize the energy used to operate such vehicles.


Keywords
classical mechanic, vibration, oscillation, control, flapping, MAV, wings.
Hyperlink
http://www.jveconferences.com/

Chaouki, A., Vība, J. Use of Two Drag Coefficient Concept for the Investigation of Flapping Wings Dynamics. Vibroengineering PROCEDIA, 2014, Vol.3, pp.39-43. ISSN 2345-0533.

Publication language
English (en)
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