Looking to the sky for aircraft design
Looking to the sky for aircraft design lead image
Understanding the aerodynamics of clusters of airborne organisms can inform aircraft design and group formation flying.
Meng et al. used numerical simulations to study how different 3D configurations affect the aerodynamic performance of multiple flapping wings based on insect flight. While previous models of this kind have examined 2D configurations of no more than two wings, their model introduces 3D configurations and increases the number of wings to three or more.
The authors found the 3D configuration of a group of three wings affects the aerodynamic performance. With in-line tandem configuration, the overall thrust of the group increases about 40 percent while the overall lift barely changes.
However, when the number of wings in the group increases, the overall thrust remains the same while the overall lift decreases relative to the three-wing configuration. This finding disagrees with an assumption made in previous two-wing models, which suggested interactions between the forewing and hindwing applied to neighboring wings if the number of wings increased.
The authors also discussed the flow mechanisms underlying their findings.
“Our work is not only important for an in-depth explanation of biological cluster movements, such as fish schooling and bird flocks, but also helpful for the design of cluster movement of bionic vehicles as well as the development of bionic vehicles with multi-flapping wings,” said author Chen Gang. “It gives us a deeper insight into the aerodynamic interference of multiple flapping wings and will provide some analytical ideas and theoretical support for the study of flow mechanisms in cluster movements.”
Next, the authors will investigate how other parameters affect the aerodynamic performance of multiple flapping wings.
Source: “Aerodynamic performance and flow mechanism of multi-flapping wings with different spatial arrangements,” by Xueguang Meng, Zengshuang Chen, Yang Zhang, and Gang Chen, Physics of Fluids (2022). The article can be accessed at https://aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/5.0080395 .
