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Unsteady aerodynamics of dragonfly using a simple wing–wing model from the perspective of a force decomposition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 November 2010

CHENG-TA HSIEH ,
CHUN-FEI KUNG ,
CHIEN C. CHANG  and
CHIN-CHOU CHU
CHENG-TA HSIEH
Affiliation:
Institute of Applied Mechanics, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, Taiwan, ROC Division of Mechanics, Research Center for Applied Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taipei 115, Taiwan, ROC
CHUN-FEI KUNG
Affiliation:
Institute of Applied Mechanics, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, Taiwan, ROC Division of Mechanics, Research Center for Applied Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taipei 115, Taiwan, ROC
CHIEN C. CHANG*
Affiliation:
Institute of Applied Mechanics, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, Taiwan, ROC Division of Mechanics, Research Center for Applied Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taipei 115, Taiwan, ROC
CHIN-CHOU CHU*
Affiliation:
Institute of Applied Mechanics, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, Taiwan, ROC
*
†Email address for correspondence: [email protected]; [email protected]
†Email address for correspondence: [email protected]; [email protected]
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Abstract

Insects perform their multitude of flight skills at frequencies of tens to hundreds of Hertz, and the aerodynamics of these skills are fundamentally unsteady. Intuitively, unsteadiness may come from unsteady wing motion, unsteady surface vorticity or vorticity being shed into the rear and front wakes. In this study, we propose to investigate the aerodynamics of dragonfly using a simplified wing–wing model from the perspective of many-body force decomposition and the associated force elements. Insect flight usually operates at Reynolds numbers of the order of several hundreds, at which the surface vorticity is shown to play a substantial role. There are important cases where the added mass effect is non-negligible. Nevertheless, the major contribution to the forces comes from the vorticity within the flow. This study focused on the effects of mutual interactions due to phase differences between the fore- and hindwings in the translational as well as rotational motions. It is well known that the dynamic stall vortex is an important mechanism for an unsteady wing to gain lift. In analysing the life cycles of lift and thrust elements, we also associate some high lift and thrust with the mechanisms identified as ‘riding on’ lift elements, ‘driven by’ thrust elements and ‘sucked by’ thrust elements, by which a wing makes use of a shed or fused vortex below, in front of, and behind it, respectively. In addition, a shear layer attaching to each wing may also provide significant thrust elements.

JFM classification

Aerodynamics: Aerodynamics Biological Fluid Dynamics: Swimming/flying
Type
Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 663 , 25 November 2010 , pp. 233 - 252
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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