ABSTRACT

As an Emerging trend in Aeronautics, these MAVs play a major role in many

applications in surveillance, reconnaissance, covert applications. One of the primary
missions driving MAV development is the need to fill the covert close-in sensing
requirement. This requirement demands that MAVs be able to covertly find, track, and
target adversaries while operating in complex urban environments. MAVs (micro air
vehicles) with dimensions of about 15-30 cm and nominal flight speeds of around 10 m
s1, operate in a Reynolds number regime of 10 5 or lower, in which most natural flyers
including insects, bats and birds fly. MAVs have attracted interest from scientific and
engineering communities due to their potential to perform desirable flight missions and
exhibit unconventional aerodynamics, control, and structural characteristics, compared to
larger flight vehicles. Due to their light weight and low flight speed, the MAVs' flight
characteristics are substantially affected by environmental factors such as wind gust. Like
natural flyers, the wing structures of MAVs are often flexible and tend to deform during
flight. The lift-to-drag ratio is noticeably lower than the larger manned flight vehicles.
The MAVs small overall dimensions result in low aspect ratio wings with strong wing tip
vortices that further complicate the aerodynamics of such vehicles. Consequently, the
aero/fluid and structural dynamics of these flyers are closely linked to each other, making
the entire flight vehicle difficult to analyze. In this work, two vehicle concepts are
considered, namely, fixed wings with flexible structure aimed at passive shape control,
and flapping wings aimed at enhancing aerodynamic performance using unsteady flow
fields Some insects use the fling mechanism: the wings are clapped together and then
flung open before the start of the down stroke, creating a lift-enhancing vortex around
each wing and most insects rely on a leading-edge vortex(LEV) created by dynamic
stall during flapping; a strong span wise flow is also generated by the pressure gradients
on the flapping wing, causing the LEV to spiral out to the wingtip.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We, hereby would like to acknowledge the encouragement and support given
to us by the following people, without whom it wouldnt be possible to go ahead with this
research work.
Firstly, we thank to our parents for supporting us without whom we wouldnt be
able to anything.
It is our privilege to express sincere thanks to our internal guide, Mr. MEER
ABDUL IRFAN, Associate professor, Department of Aeronautical Engineering, Bharat
Institute Of Engineering And Technology. His guidance helped us through the tough
times. He was always supportive and helped us in bad times.
We also wish to express our deepest gratitude to Mr. GOVIND Admin In charge,
who has helped us and guided us through our academics and project.
We sincerely thank the faculty members of Department of Aeronautics, Bharat
Institute of Engineering And Technology, Mr. Ajay Dev, Mr. Manoj Kumar and other
lecturers for their valuable suggestions and support.
We would like to thank our friends and well-wishers, and all our classmates for
always being there for us through our good and bad times.
We are also thankful to all those who have been of immense help, either directly
or indirectly and whose names, we have unknowingly missed out.

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DECLARATION
We hereby declare that the Project Report entitled Flapping wing

Aerodynamics of Low Reynolds Number flight vehicles (MAVs/UAVs)

submitted to the JNTU Hyderabad is a record of an original work done by us under the
guidance of Mr. Meer Abdul Irfan, Project coordinator of Aeronautical Engineering,
Bharat Institute Of Engineering And Technology. This Project Report work is submitted
in the partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree of Bachelor of
Technology in Aeronautical Engineering.

B.JAGDISH

(10E11A2114)

J. SAI CHARAN TEJA

(10E11A2137)

S.SUNDEEP KUMAR

(10E11A2147)

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
DECLARATION
LIST OF FIGURES
NOMENCLATURE

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1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Motivation and background

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2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Wing Kinematics
2.2 Flapping Wing Dynamics
2.3 Averaging Theory and Formulation of Forces
2.3.1 Applicability of Averaging Theory
2.3.2 Averaged Force and Advance Ratio
2.3.3 Formulation of Main-wing Forces2.3 Stability studies
2.4 Dynamics Studies
2.5 Stability Studies
2.6 Flapping and Membrane Wing Research

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3.

THEORITICAL BACKGROUND
3.1 Objectives
3.2 Fixed Wing MAVs
3.3 Wagner Effect
3.4 Leading Edge Vortex
3.5 Clap and fling mechanism
3.6 Morphology of Birds
3.6.1 Body Shape
3.6.2 Wing structure
3.6.3. Wing Shape

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4.

DESIGN
4.1 Conceptual design
4.2 Aerodynamics
4.3 Mechanism

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5.

DEVELOPMENT
5.1 Wing concept
5.2 Mechanical design
5.3 Fabrication

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6.

STATIC ANALYSIS

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7.

RESLUTS AND DISCUSSION

7.1 Validation

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CONCLUSION

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FUTURE SCOPE
8.1 Present Progress of Research Work
8.2 Future Research Direction

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REFERENCES

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LIST OF FIGURES
1.1
2.1

Reynolds number range for flying objects

Kinematics of the transmission system and analysis of
system kinematics
2.2 Definition of wing parameters and velocity components and induced
velocity due to flapping.
2.3 Micro sized ornithopters. Top row left to right:
Aerovironment/Caltec's Microbat, University of Florida MAV,
University of Toronto Mentor. Bottom row left to right: Technical
University of Delfts Delfly, Nathan Chronisters
Hummingbird and Petter Murens MAV
3.1(a) Maximum Lift Coefficient
3.1(b) Maximum Drag Coefficient
3.1(c) Maximum lift-to-drag ratio
3.2 Leading Edge Vortex

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3.3 Evolution of leading edge vortex in

(A) two dimension and
(B) three dimensions during linear translation starting from rest
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3.4 Schematic representation of the clap (A-C) and fling (D-F)
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3.5 Flow past a dead frozen birds body (upper),
and an alive bird (lower) in the wind tunnel.
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3.6 Feathers that serve as flaps to increase lift
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3.7 Wing structures of pelicans and hummingbirds
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3.8 Diversity of wings and wingtips in birds
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3.9 Wing of the Ruby-throated hummingbird
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3.10 Elliptical (ideal) wing planform and the lift distribution
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3.11 Schematic drawing of a bird.
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4.1 Flapping wing mechanism with defined angle for equation
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4.2 Flapping wing mechanism: Direct actuation
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4.3 Flapping wing mechanism: Actuation with mechanism
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4.4 Flapping wing mechanism: Combination with torsional spring
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5.1 Wing motion of a fly in hovering flight
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5.2 Different shapes of wings
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5.3 Implementation of fly wings
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5.4 Implementation of hummingbird wings
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5.5 Two wings made of one piece
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5.6 The main structure with predefined axis
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5.7 The main structure with the distances between the gear axis
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5.8 The main structure with all components
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5.9 Wing parameters: Chord length and angle
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5.10 High speed photography of the stroke cycle of the blue ornithopter
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5.11 Stroke amplitude of 25 degrees while radius of 10 cm wing

5.12 Angles and Nomenclature of flapping wing
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5.13 Design source used for flapping wing vehicle

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6.1 Contours of static pressure

6.2 Velocity Vectors colored by velocity Magnitude
6.3 Path lines colored by a particle
6.4 A MATLAB post-processing graph

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NOMENCLATURE
s
AOA,t
ind,t
ind
ins,t
ist
t

, ,

b
CL , CT
F
f
J
S
U
u, v, w
W(l)
Vb

The set angle

The angle of attack of the tail wing
The induced angle due to the downwash of the main wing
The induced angle due to vertical motion
The installation angle of the tail wing
The installation angle of main wings
The angle between the drag force and the xb-axis
The stroke angle
The roll angle, the pitch angle, and the yaw angle, respectively
Air density
Rotational velocity of the flapping-wing MAV
The semi-wingspan
Main-wing lift and thrust coefficients, respectively
Magnitude of external forces; the subscript denotes the coordinate system,
the type of the force, or the component that generates the force
The flapping frequency
The advance ratio
Area of the wing
Speed of incoming flow
The velocity component along the xb-, yb-, and zb-direction in the bodyfixed frame
Width of the wing as a function of l m mass of the flapping-wing MAV
Velocity of the flapping-wing MAV in the body-fixed frame

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