Print Email Facebook Twitter Vortex-lift modeling provides reliable force predictions for flapping-wing Micro Air Vehicles Part of: International Micro Air Vehicle conference and competitions 2011 (IMAV 2011)· list the conference papers Title Vortex-lift modeling provides reliable force predictions for flapping-wing Micro Air Vehicles Author Thielicke, W. Kesel, A.B. Stamhuis, E.J. Date 2011-09-12 Abstract Vertical and horizontal force of a flapping-wing micro air vehicle (MAV) has been measured in slow-speed forward flight using a force balance. Detailed information on kinematics was used to estimate forces using a blade-element analysis. Input variables for this analysis are lift and drag coefficients. These coefficients are usually derived from steady-state measurements of a wing in translational flow. Previous studies on insect flight have shown that this method underestimates forces in flapping flight, mainly because it cannot account for additional lift created by unsteady phenomena. We therefore derived lift and drag coefficients using a concept for delta-wings with stably attached leading edge vortices. Resulting lift coefficients appeared to be a factor of 2.5 higher than steady-flow coefficients, and match the results from previous (numerical) studies on instantaneous lift coefficients in flapping flight. The present study confirms that a blade-element analysis using force coefficients derived from steady-state wind tunnel measurements underestimates vertical force by a factor of two. The equivalent analysis, using vortex-lift enhanced coefficients from a delta-wing analogue, yields very good agreement with force balance measurements, and hence seems to be a good approximation for lift-enhancing flow phenomena when modeling flapping flight. Subject Micro Air Vehicleflapping wingaerodynamics To reference this document use: https://doi.org/10.4233/uuid:d83936ec-7d58-43e7-8ed5-3e3e97fc9b4a Part of collection Conference proceedings Document type conference paper Rights (c) 2011 Thielicke, W.; Kesel, A.B.; Stamhuis, E.J. Files PDF IMAV2011SE_P13.pdf 1.11 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:d83936ec-7d58-43e7-8ed5-3e3e97fc9b4a/datastream/OBJ/view