Abstract
A modern class of micro aerial vehicles (MAVs) uses deformable membrane wings (DMWs), which comprise rigid or rigidizable structural elements that guarantee stiffness, as well as flexible membranes that provide an aerodynamic shape, all in a compact and lightweight form. To contribute to the body of knowledge about DMWs, this paper presents extensive numerical simulations, accompanied by experiments that substantiate the findings pertinent to the aerodynamics and static aeroelastic behavior of these unconventional wings. The performance characteristics of canonical, untapered, and untwisted rectangular DMWs are studied using a parametric physical-based two-dimensional (2D) fluid structure interaction (FSI) model adopting a two-way coupled FSI algorithm. The effect of geometrical, material, and flow properties is investigated, and the results obtained show that the material Young’s modulus is the most influential parameter affecting the aerodynamic characteristics of the studied DMWs, with their higher rigidity and lower excess length ratio producing a higher lift-to-drag ratio. The validation of the computational modeling is carried out using a dedicated experimental setup tested in a low-speed wind tunnel facility. Numerical investigations show reasonably good agreement with the performed experiments and provide a wealth of information on the aerodynamic and aeroelastic behavior of this class of wings.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the EU Research Executive Agency (REA) for supporting the A2 Net Team project under FP7 Marie Curie Grant 269190. The A2 Net Team project established a connection among the authors of the paper and created an environment in which the authors have done much of the work presented here. Partial support for this research was provided by the School of Engineering of Clarkson University.
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Published In
Journal of Aerospace Engineering
Volume 29 • Issue 3 • May 2016
Copyright
© 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Feb 28, 2015
Accepted: Jul 23, 2015
Published online: Oct 15, 2015
Discussion open until: Mar 15, 2016
Published in print: May 1, 2016
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