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Flapping flight in the wake of a leading insect

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Abstract

This study explores the wake effects of an upstream leading insect on the flight performance of a following one. The potential-flow based aerodynamic model, which combines the unsteady panel and unsteady vortex-lattice methods, is used to compute aerodynamic loads and simulate wake structures. The accuracy of the current aerodynamic model was confirmed in this study. The paper shows that the following insect does not cause any noticeable impact on the leading insect aerodynamics, while unfavorable effects due to the presence of the leading insect were found on the following counterpart. Nonetheless, by choosing a proper wing kinematic phase, the following insect may absorb the energy of the leading insect’s trailing wake, and therefore mitigate these negative effects. The variations of the required mechanical power of the following insect against the wing kinematic phase difference were shown to be related to the travel of the leading insect’s downstroke starting vortex.

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Acknowledgments

This research is funded by Vietnam National Foundation for Science and Technology Development (NAFOSTED) under grant number 107.01-2018.05.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Le Quy Don Technical University, 236 Hoang Quoc Viet, Ha Noi, Vietnam

    Anh Tuan Nguyen, Thanh Dong Pham & Quoc Tru Vu

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  1. Anh Tuan Nguyen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Anh Tuan Nguyen.

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Recommended by Associate Editor Seongwon Kang

Anh Tuan Nguyen is a lecturer at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Le Quy Don Technical University, Ha Noi, Vietnam. He received his Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from KAIST, Daejeon, S. Korea, in 2017. His research interests are bioinspired flapping-wing micro air vehicles, unsteady aerodynamics, multibody dynamics and aeroelasticity.

Thanh Dong Pham is a lecturer at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Le Quy Don Technical University, Ha Noi, Vietnam. He received the Master of Science in Russia in 2012. His research interests are aerodynamics of rotor machines, unsteady aerodynamics and multibody dynamics.

Quoc Tru Vu is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Le Quy Don Technical University, Ha Noi, Vietnam. He received the Ph.D. from Le Quy Don Technical University in 2002. His research interests are aircraft system design, aircraft structure, unsteady aerodynamics and aeroelasticity.

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Nguyen, A.T., Pham, T.D. & Vu, Q.T. Flapping flight in the wake of a leading insect. J Mech Sci Technol 33, 3277–3288 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-019-0623-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-019-0623-4

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