Inertial Effect on the Time-Averaged Lift of Flapping Wings

Lung-Jieh  Yang; Balasubramanian  Esakki; Reshmi  Waikhom

doi:10.6180/jase.202006_23(2).0019

Inertial Effect on the Time-Averaged Lift of Flapping Wings

Lung-Jieh Yang This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.¹, Balasubramanian Esakki² and Reshmi Waikhom¹

¹Department of Mechanical and Electromechanical Engineering, Tamkang University, 25137, Tamsui, Taiwan, R.O.C.
²Department of Mechanical Engineering, Vel Tech Rangarajan Dr. Sagunthala R&D Institute of Science and Technology, Avadi, Chennai, 600062, Tamil Nadu, India

Received: November 17, 2019
Accepted: January 9, 2020
Publication Date: June 1, 2020

Download Citation: ||https://doi.org/10.6180/jase.202006_23(2).0019

ABSTRACT

This note presents the time-averaged inertial force which relates to the velocity difference between the final and initial states of a flapping wing motion. For the periodic flapping motion with identical final and initial velocities, there are no inertial force contribution to the time-averaged lift. Therefore, the wake capture mechanism proposed by Dickinson justifies more convincing than Sunada’s added mass or Sun’s rapid acceleration at the stroke onset of hovering. The vanishing inertial force to the time-averaged lift is also beneficial to the concise signal processing of lift data from the wind tunnel test.

Keywords: Flapping Wing, Inertial Force, Hovering, Wake Capture

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