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Session: Adaptive structures 1
Session starts: Tuesday 18 June, 11:00
Presentation starts: 12:00
Room: Room 1.6

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Douglas Bueno (São Paulo State University (UNESP))
Rodrigo Borges Santos (Federal University of Grande Dourados (UFGD))
Camila Gonsalez-Bueno (São Paulo State University (UNESP))

Abstract:
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been often used for several applications, such as engineering, military and entertainment. In particular, insect-like and bird-like UAVs have demonstrated a huge potential for developing a new generation of aerial vehicles, with high efficiency and versatility for different missions. However, the aeroelastic characteristics of these vehicles are not well known yet. In this context, this present article investigates the aeroelastic dynamics bio-inspired flapping wing. The study is focused on developing aeroelastic models for insect-like and bird-like UAVs, including both structural flexibility and aerodynamics effects. The Finite Element Method is employed to obtain the structural dynamics of the wing, based on a six degrees of freedom per node beam-type element. The structural mesh considers a spar and ribs to create the wing geometry and a spatial spline technique is used to connect both structural and aerodynamic models to each other. The aerodynamic model is obtained by considering the Unsteady Vortex Lattice Method. A panel mesh is considered to define the wing geometry, and the wake development over time. A second order differential equation of motion is considered and the solution is obtained in the time domain. The virtual work method is considered to achieve the conservation energy when transporting the aerodynamic efforts to the structural mesh, and vice-versa. The aeroelastic responses of the flapping wing are obtained for different amplitudes and frequencies of motion. The influence of the wake length is evaluated for each case, besides the dimension of the aerodynamic panels. The numerical results show that this type of approach can be used to design bio-inspired UAVs.