In this study, two simplified models of hovering motion for fruit fly and dragon fly from the perspective of force decomposition are revisited. The unsteady aerodynamics are analysed by examining the lift force and its four constituent components, each of which is directly related to a physical effect. These force components include one from the vorticity within the flow, one from the surface vorticity and two contributions credited to the motion of the insect wing. According to the phase difference in the models, a hovering motion can be classified into one of three types: symmetric, advanced and delayed rotations. The relative importance of the force components under various flow conditions are carefully analysed. It is shown that the symmetric rotation has the maximum vorticity lift (from volume and surface vorticity), but the optimal average lift is attained for an advanced rotation, which, compared to the symmetric rotation, increases the force contribution due to the unsteady surface motion at the expense of sacrificing contribution from the vorticity. By identifying the variations of the vorticity lift with flow characteristics, the detailed mechanisms associated with the unsteady aerodynamics at different phases of hovering motion further may be explored. For the different types of rotation, the insect wing shares the same mechanism of gaining lift when in the phase of driving with a fuller speed but exhibits different mechanisms at turning from one phase of motion to another. Moreover, the effects of the Reynolds number in an appropriate range are alos examined and the performance of different wing profiles from symmetric to largely cambered are evaluated.


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    Title :

    Revisiting the aerodynamics of hovering flight using simple models


    Additional title:

    Überprüfung der Aerodynamik des Schwebeflugs mit Hilfe einfacher Modelle


    Contributors:

    Published in:

    Publication date :

    2009


    Size :

    28 Seiten, 15 Bilder, 6 Tabellen, 42 Quellen




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Print


    Language :

    English




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