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Aerodynamics And Vortex Structures Of A Flapping Airfoil In Forward Flight In Proximity Of Ground, Hang Li

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The traditional flapping wing high lift mechanism research mainly focuses on the wing in unbounded flow. However, the real insect flight includes not only the unbounded flow field but also the near-surface flight. Therefore, research on near-surface flight can help reveal the high-lift mechanism of insect flight and should also be beneficial to the research on Micro-Air-Vehicles (MAV). In this thesis, the flow fields of an airfoil in hover and forward flight are simulated in the presence of ground by newly available function of “dynamic meshing” in ANSYS Fluent is employed. The characteristics of aerodynamics, pressure distribution, and vortex structure …