Abstract:

Dragonflies are capable of carrying out dramatic flight manoeuvres, gliding flight is a common mode of flight for dragonfly, and dragonfly wings are the source of dragonflies dramatic flight manoeuvres. Unlike typical engineered airfoil, dragonfly wings are not smooth, wing cross-section are highly corrugated. It has been shown that corrugations could enhance the spanwise stiffness in the wings and influence aerodynamic performance of the dragonfly wings. Flexibility is another characteristic of the dragonfly's wings, which is mainly manifested as the flexible deformation of the wings during the flight. To explore corrugations and flexibility effect on aerodynamic performance of the dragonfly forewings in gliding flight, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model and a computational structural mechanics (CSD) model of the corrugated dragonfly forewing are established based on current research, and the modal analysis verified that the model has sufficient accuracy. The corrugated rigid and flexible dragonfly forewing are acquired by using CFD method and CFD/CSD coupling method respectively. The simulation indicated that flexible and corrugated forewings is subjected to aerodynamic load, which only produces bending deformation without torsion deformation in gliding flight, and the aerodynamic response time is short. Compared with the aerodynamic performance of the rigid and corrugated forewings, the result showed that veins and cuticular membrane of flexible forewing are deformed which caused the lift coefficient and drag coefficient decrease, the leading edge vortex of flexible forewing is much higher than rigid forewings at large angle of attack because of deformed vein. The aerodynamic performance of rigid forewings is better below 10 degree angle of attack,and the aerodynamic performance of flexible forewings is better at large angle of attack as result.

Key words: corrugation|flexibility|dragonfly forewing|fuid-structure interaction|gliding flight