Publications related to Stall Delay and Leading-Edge Suction for a Pitching Airfoil with Trailing-Edge Flap

The effects of kinematics, flexibility, and planform on the vortex formation and aerodynamic performance of flapping wing flight

In this thesis, the aerodynamic challenges in flapping wing flight are addressed. In particular, the effects of different wing kinematics, flexibilities, and planforms on the the leading edge vortex development and aerodynamic performance are investigated. ...

EPFL2023

Vortex shedding from a composite hydrofoil: Experimental evidence of a novel "partial lock-in"

Mohamed Farhat, Qin Wu, Thomas Antoine Nicolas Berger, Yunqing Liu

Lock-in is of great importance in many engineering applications due to its practical implications for structural safety. The influence of composite bend-twist coupling on the wake dynamics and vortex-induced vibration around a carbon fiber composite hydrof ...

Aip Publishing2023

Wing and tail morphing in birds and drones

Enrico Ajanic

To aid humans in civilian tasks, future drones will have to operate in large cities that abound with difficult flight conditions such as confined spaces, obstacles, and turbulent air. Such drones must cruise efficiently to cover vast distances fast and als ...

EPFL2023

To tread or not to tread: comparison between water treading and conventional flapping wing kinematics

Karen Ann J Mulleners, Swathi Badala Krishna, Alexander Gehrke

Hovering insects are limited by their physiology and need to rotate their wings at the end of each back-and-forth motion to keep the wing's leading edge ahead of its trailing edge. The wing rotation at the end of each half-stroke pushes the leading edge vo ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2022

Aeroelastic characterisation of a bio-inspired flapping membrane wing

Karen Ann J Mulleners, Alexander Gehrke, Esra Uksul, Jules Ange Philippe Richeux

Natural fliers like bats exploit the complex fluid-structure interaction between their flexible membrane wings and the air with great ease. Yet, replicating and scaling the balance between the structural and fluid-dynamical parameters of unsteady membrane ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2022

All you need is time to generalise the Goman-Khrabrov dynamic stall model

Fatma Ayancik Cinoglu, Karen Ann J Mulleners

Dynamic stall on airfoils negatively impacts their aerodynamic performance and can lead to structural damage. Accurate prediction and modelling of the dynamic stall loads are crucial for a more robust design of wings and blades that operate under unsteady ...

Cambridge University Press2022

How ornithopters can perch autonomously on a branch

Raphael Zufferey

Flapping wings produce lift and thrust in bio-inspired aerial robots, leading to quiet, safe and efficient flight. However, to extend their application scope, these robots must perch and land, a feat widely demonstrated by birds. Despite recent progress, f ...

Nature Portfolio2022

Growth, timing, & trajectory of vortices behind a rotating plate

Diego Francescangeli

The presence of aerodynamic vortices is widespread in nature. They can be found at small scales near the wing tip of flying insects or at bigger scale in the form of hurricanes, cyclones or even galaxies. They are identified as coherent regions of high vor ...

EPFL2022

Not gone with the wind: Active microscale flight with highly porous bristled wings

Pedro Miguel Nunes Pereira de Almeida Reis, Yuexia Luna Lin

The finesse of sub-millimeter insect flight with comb-like bristled wings raises intriguing questions, not only on fluid-structure interactions (FSI) but also on the mechanical behavior of the underlying, highly porous structures. Farisenkov et al. charact ...

ELSEVIER2022

Sharp turning maneuvers with avian-inspired wing and tail morphing

Dario Floreano, Enrico Ajanic, Mir Alikhan Bin Mohammad Feroskhan, Valentin Wüest

Flight in dense environments, such as forests and cities requires drones to perform sharp turns. Although fixed-wing drones are aerodynamically and energetically more efficient than multicopters, they require a comparatively larger area to turn and thus ar ...

2022

Experimental quantification of unsteady leading-edge flow separation

Karen Ann J Mulleners, Julien Dominique Claude Deparday

We propose here a method to experimentally quantify unsteady leading-edge flow separation on aerofoils with finite thickness. The methodology relies on the computation of a leading-edge suction parameter based on measured values of the partial circulation ...

Cambridge University Press2022

The dynamic stall dilemma for vertical-axis wind turbines

Sébastien Le Fouest, Karen Ann J Mulleners

Vertical-axis wind turbines (VAWT) are excellent candidates to complement traditional wind turbines and increase the total wind energy capacity. Development of VAWT has been hampered by their low efficiency and structural unreliability, which are related t ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2022

The dynamics and timescales of static stall

Sébastien Le Fouest, Karen Ann J Mulleners, Julien Dominique Claude Deparday

Airfoil stall plays a central role in the design of safe and efficient lifting surfaces. We typically distinguish between static and dynamic stall based on the unsteady rate of change of an airfoil’s angle of attack. Despite the somewhat misleading denotat ...

2021

Phenomenology and scaling of optimal flapping wing kinematics

Karen Ann J Mulleners, Alexander Gehrke

Biological flapping wing fliers operate efficiently and robustly in a wide range of flight conditions and are a great source of inspiration to engineers. The unsteady aerodynamics of flapping wing flight are dominated by large-scale vortical structures tha ...

IOP PUBLISHING LTD2021

Effects of leading-edge separation on the vortex-induced vibration of an elongated bluff body

Hongyu Li, Guiyue Duan

Wind-tunnel experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of leading-edge separation on the vortex-induced vibration (VIV) of an elastically-supported elongated bluff body. Solid wind barriers of various heights were fixed in the leading edge to ad ...

ELSEVIER2021

Comparative dynamic flight stability of insect-inspired flapping-wing micro air vehicles in hover: Longitudinal and lateral motions

Hoang Vu Phan, Khanh Nguyen

In this paper, we compare the characteristics of hovering stability for two insect-inspired flapping-wing micro air vehicles (FW-MAVs) with different strategies to generate control moments for the longitudinal and lateral attitude controls. The two robots ...

2021

A bioinspired Separated Flow wing provides turbulence resilience and aerodynamic efficiency for miniature drones

Stefano Mintchev, Matteo Di Luca

Small-scale drones have enough sensing and computing power to find use across a growing number of applications. However, flying in the low-Reynolds number regime remains challenging. High sensitivity to atmospheric turbulence compromises vehicle stability ...

AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE2020

Dynamic stall on an airfoil undergoing VAWT blade angle of attack variations

Sébastien Le Fouest, Karen Ann J Mulleners, Sabrina Henne

Vertical axis wind turbines have several attractive features in the context of energy production in urban areas, but the inherent aerodynamic complexity of the flow around them has challenged their development on a larger scale. They generally operate at l ...

2020

A point vortex transportation model for yawed wind turbine wakes

Fernando Porté Agel, Haohua Zong

In this study, stereo particle imaging velocimetry measurements are performed at multiple streamwise locations behind a yawed wind turbine to reveal the formation mechanisms of the counter-rotating vortex pair (CVP), and a point vortex transportation (PVT) ...

Cambridge University Press2020

Bioinspired wing and tail morphing extends drone flight capabilities

Dario Floreano, Flavio Noca, Stefano Mintchev, Enrico Ajanic, Mir Alikhan Bin Mohammad Feroskhan

The aerodynamic designs of winged drones are optimized for specific flight regimes. Large lifting surfaces provide maneuverability and agility but result in larger power consumption, and thus lower range, when flying fast compared with small lifting surfac ...

2020