Skip to main content
×
×
Home

Lift generation with optimal elastic pitching for a flapping plate

  • Diing-wen Peng (a1) and Michele Milano (a1)
Abstract

The lift-generating capabilities of a translating and passively pitching rectangular plate are assessed experimentally. The plate pitch dynamics are generated by a rotational spring, and a genetic algorithm isolates a set of spring parameters maximizing the average lift. Our experiments identified a range of parameters that produce kinematic trajectories associated with optimal lift production. The stroke length and the dynamic response of the spring at the driving frequency are revealed to play crucial roles in the generation of such trajectories. Measurements taken with digital particle image velocimetry are used to analyse the results.

Copyright
Corresponding author
Email address for correspondence: dpeng2@buffalo.edu
References
Hide All
Bergou, A. J., Xu, S. & Wang, Z. J. 2007 Passive wing pitch reversal in insect flight. J. Fluid Mech. 591, 321337.
Birch, J. M. & Dickinson, M. H. 2001 Spanwise flow and the attachment of the leading-edge vortex on insect wings. Nature 412 (6848), 729733.
Dai, H., Luo, H. & Doyle, J. F. 2012 Dynamic pitching of an elastic rectangular wing in hovering motion. J. Fluid Mech. 693, 473499.
Dickinson, M. H. 1999 Wing rotation and the aerodynamic basis of insect flight. Science 284 (5422), 19541960.
Dickinson, M. H. & Götz, K. G. 1993 Unsteady aerodynamic performance of model wings at low Reynolds numbers. J. Exp. Biol. 64, 4564.
Eldredge, J. D., Toomey, J. & Medina, A. 2010 On the roles of chord-wise flexibility in a flapping wing with hovering kinematics. J. Fluid Mech. 659, 94115.
Ellington, C. P. 1984 The aerodynamics of hovering insect flight. V. Vortex theory. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B 305 (1122), 115144.
Ellington, C. P. 1996 Leading edge vortices in insect flight. Nature 384, 626630.
Ishihara, D., Horie, T. & Denda, M. 2009a A two-dimensional computational study on the fluid–structure interaction cause of wing pitch changes in dipteran flapping flight. J. Exp. Biol. 212 (Pt 1), 110.
Ishihara, D., Yamashita, Y., Horie, T., Yoshida, S. & Niho, T. 2009b Passive maintenance of high angle of attack and its lift generation during flapping translation in crane fly wing. J. Exp. Biol. 212 (Pt 23), 38823891.
Khan, Z., Steelman, K. & Agrawal, S. 2009 Development of insect thorax based flapping mechanism. IEEE. Intl Conf. Robot. 36513656.
Kim, D. & Gharib, M. D. 2011 Flexibility effects on vortex formation of translating plates. J. Fluid Mech. 677, 255271.
Liu, H., Ellington, C. P. & Kawachi, K. C 1998 A computational fluid dynamic study of hawkmoth hovering. J. Exp. Biol. 201, 461477.
Milano, M. & Gharib, M. 2005 Uncovering the physics of flapping flat plates with artificial evolution. J. Fluid Mech. 534, 403409.
Milano, M. & Koumoutsakos, P. 2002 A clustering genetic algorithm for cylinder drag optimization. J. Comput. Phys. 175 (1), 79107.
Ogata, K. 2002 Modern Control Engineering, 4th edn. Pearson Education.
Ramamurti, R. & Sandberg, W. C. 2002 A three-dimensional computational study of the aerodynamic mechanisms of insect flight. J. Exp. Biol. 205 (10), 150715018.
Ramananarivo, S., Godoy-Diana, R. & Thiria, B. 2011 Rather than resonance, flapping wing flyers may play on aerodynamics to improve performance. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 108 (15), 59645969.
Tanaka, H., Whitney, J. P. & Wood, R. J. 2011 Effect of flexural and torsional wing flexibility on lift generation in hoverfly flight. Integr. Comput. Biol. 51 (1), 142150.
Vanella, M., Fitzgerald, T., Preidikman, S., Balaras, E. & Balachandran, B. 2009 Influence of flexibility on the aerodynamic performance of a hovering wing. J. Exp. Biol. 212 (1), 95105.
Wang, Z. J. 2005 Dissecting insect flight. Annu. Rev. Fluid Mech. 37, 183210.
Zhang, J., Liu, N.-S. & Lu, X.-Y. 2010 Locomotion of a passively flapping flat plate. J. Fluid Mech. 659, 4368.
Recommend this journal

Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this journal to your organisation's collection.

Journal of Fluid Mechanics
  • ISSN: 0022-1120
  • EISSN: 1469-7645
  • URL: /core/journals/journal-of-fluid-mechanics
Please enter your name
Please enter a valid email address
Who would you like to send this to? *
×
MathJax

Keywords:

Metrics

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 72 *
Loading metrics...

Abstract views

Total abstract views: 186 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between September 2016 - 13th June 2018. This data will be updated every 24 hours.