A Study of Planar and Nonplanar Membrane Wing Planforms for the Design of a Flapping-Wing Micro Air Vehicle

Flapping wings may have potential for success in the realm of micro air vehicles (MAVs). The goal of this thesis was to investigate a variety of flapping wing planforms, including nonplanar effects, to create an optimum planform for an MAV design. Test stand and model prototype experiments were conducted to measure the lift and propulsive thrust generated by flapping wing planforms with a variety of nonplanar tips. The polynomial planform with 20º tip anhedral was selected for the flapping-wing MAV designed herein because of its enhanced performance, reaching over 15 g of lift….

Contents

1 Introduction
1.1 What are Micro Air Vehicles?
1.1.1 Aerodynamics
1.1.2 Propulsion
1.1.3 Flight Controls and Navigation
1.1.4 Communications
1.1.5 Multi-function Subsystems
1.2 State-of-the-Art
1.2.1 Fixed-Wing MAVs
1.2.2 Rotary-Wing MAVs
1.2.3 Flapping-Wing MAVs
1.3 Contribution of the Present Work
1.4 Thesis Outline
2 Physical Principles
2.1 Low Reynolds Number Aerodynamics
2.2 Lift and Thrust of Flapping Membrane Wings
2.3 Predicting Flapping Wing Forces
2.3.1 Blade Element Analysis
2.3.2 Theory of the Wake
2.3.3 Studies in Flapping-Wing Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
3 Experiments
3.1 Objectives
3.2 Experimental Approach
3.3 Initial Sizing
3.4 Test Stand Experiment
3.4.1 Test Stand Set-up
3.4.2 Test Stand Results
3.5 MAV Prototype Experiments
3.5.1 Prototype Development
3.5.2 JLMAV Prototype
3.5.3 Powered Glide Tests
3.5.4 Wind Tunnel Test Setup
3.5.5 Wind Tunnel Test Results
3.6 JLMAV Wing Selection
3.6.1 Thrust Analysis of the Selected Wing
4 Explanation of Results
4.1 Instantaneous Lift
4.2 Strobe Analysis
5 Conclusions and Future Work
5.1 Summary and Conclusions
5.2 Recommendations for Future Work

Author: Beasley, Beverly

Source: University of Maryland

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