• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.54-62
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• 2023

Flapping-wing air vehicles, well known for their free vertical take-off and excellent flight capability, are currently under intensive development and research. While most of the studies have explored the effect of various parameters of synchronized motions on the unsteady aerodynamics of flapping wings, limited attention has been given to the effect of nonsynchronous motions on the unsteady aerodynamic characteristics of flapping wings. In the present study, we conducted a numerical analysis to investigate the unsteady aerodynamic characteristics of an airfoil flapping with different frequency ratios between pitch and heave oscillations. We identified the motions and angle of attacks due to nonsynchronous motions. It was found that the synchronous motion produced thrust with zero lift, but the nonsynchronous motion generated a large lift with little drag. The aerodynamic characteristics of the airfoil undergoing the non-synchronous motion were also analyzed using the vorticity distributions and the pressure coefficient around and on the airfoil. When r was equal to 0.5, larger leading and trailing edge vortices were observed compared to the case when r was equal to 1.0, and these vortices significantly affected the aerodynamic characteristics of the airfoil undergoing the nonsynchronous motion. In future, the effect of pitch amplitude on the unsteady aerodynamic characteristics of the airfoil will be studied.

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.151-158
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• 2009

To implement the insects' flapping flight for developing flapping MAVs(micro air vehicles), the unsteady flow characteristics of the insects' forward flight is investigated. In this paper, two-dimensional FSI(Fluid-Structure Interaction) simulations are conducted to examine realistic flow features of insects' flapping flight and to examine the flexibility effects of the insect's wing. The unsteady incompressible Navier-Stokes equations with an artificial compressibility method are implemented as the fluid module while the dynamic finite element equations using a direct integration method are employed as the solid module. In order to exchange physical information to each module, the common refinement method is employed as the data transfer method. Also, a simple and efficient dynamic grid deformation technique based on Delaunay graph mapping is used to deform computational grids. Compared to the earlier researches of two-dimensional rigid wing simulations, key physical phenomena and flow patterns such as vortex pairing and vortex staying can still be observed. For example, lift is mainly generated during downstroke motion by high effective angle of attack caused by translation and lagging motion. A large amount of thrust is generated abruptly at the end of upstroke motion. However, the quantitative aspect of flow field is somewhat different. A flexible wing generates more thrust but less lift than a rigid wing. This is because the net force acting on wing surface is split into two directions due to structural flexibility. As a consequence, thrust and propulsive efficiency was enhanced considerably compared to a rigid wing. From these numerical simulations, it is seen that the wing flexibility yields a significant impact on aerodynamic characteristics.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.36 no.6
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• pp.653-663
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• 2012

The study considers the high maneuverability flight and path optimization is conducted to investigate the appropriate generation of the lift and thrust considering the angle of the stroke plane. The path optimization problem is defined according to the various purposes of the high maneuverability flight. The flying purposes are to maximize thrust force, lift force and both lift and thrust forces. The flapping motion of the airfoil is made by a combined sinusoidal plunging and pitching motion in each problem. The optimization process is carried out by using well-defined surrogate models. The surrogate model is determined by the results of two-dimensional computational fluid dynamics analysis. The Kriging method is used to make the surrogate model and a genetic algorithm is utilized to optimize the surrogate model. The optimization results show the flapping motions for the high maneuverable flight. The effects on the generation of lift and thrust forces are confirmed by analyzing the vortex.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.238-249
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• 2012

Flight test of flapping micro air vehicles (FMAVs) is carried out using an instrumented measurement system to obtain various engineering parameters and hence to assess the flight performance of the vehicles through the data investigation. An indoor flight test facility equipped with a motion capture system and tracking cameras is used for the work presented in this paper. Maneuvers including straight-level flight, ground flapping, takeoff and landing are tested. Spatial position and orientation data are obtained from the retro-reflective tracking markers attached to the vehicles. Subsequent test analysis is carried out by generating performance parameters from raw data and then assessing the flight performance by comparison of the vehicles. The main findings of this work confirm that the test method and procedures presented here enable the systematic numerical data measurement and assessment of the flying performances of these vehicles, and show the applicability for the test and evaluation of general flapping MAVs.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.34 no.10
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• pp.1385-1391
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• 2010

In this study, we present small-size, low-power, and high-speed electromagnetic flapping shutters for phone cameras. These shutters are composed of trapezoidal twin blades suspended by H-type torsional springs. The existing electrostatic rolling and flapping shutters need high input voltage, while the existing electromagnetic rotating shutters are too big to be used for phone cameras. To achieve low-power and high-speed angle motion for small-size electromagnetic flapping shutters for camera phones, low-inertia trapezoidal twin blades, each suspended by the low-stiffness H-type torsional springs, are employed. The electromagnetic flapping shutters used in this experimental study have steady-state rotational angles of $48.8{\pm}1.4^{\circ}$ and $64.4{\pm}1.0^{\circ}$ in the magentic fields of 0.15 T and 0.30 T, respectively, for an input current of 60 mA; the maximum overshoot angles are $80.2{\pm}3.5^{\circ}$ and $90.0{\pm}1.0^{\circ}$ in the magentic fields of 0.15 T and 0.30 T, respectively. The rising/settling times of the shutter while opening are 1.0 ms/20.0 ms, while those while closing are 1.7 ms/10.3 ms. Thus, we experimentally demonstrated that the smallsize (${\sim}8{\times}8{\times}2\;mm^3$), low-power (${\leq}60\;mA$), and high-speed (~1/370 s) electromagnetic flapping shutters are suitable for phone cameras.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.723-726
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• 2005

The two major obstacles in the application of IPMC to flapping actuators operated in the air are solvent loss and actuation force. In this paper, solvent loss of various IPMCs made of Nafion$^{TM}$117(183$\mu$m thickness) has been experimentally investigated to find out the best combination of cation and solvent for minimal solvent loss in IPMCs and higher actuation force. For this purpose. experiments for the internal solvent loss measurement of IMPCs have been conducted for various combinations of cation and solvent. From the experiments, it was found that heavy water showed improvement in the operating time up to more than two minutes. in the tip force measurement of IPMCs, it was found that smaller and thicker IPMCs produced larger tip forces. However, the shorter IPMCs generated reduced actuation displacements and created flapping motion with decreased natural frequency. For the design of flapping device actuated by 5mm wide, 10mm long, 0.2mm thick IPMCs were used in the stacked form. Since the actuation force is a few gram-force, we stacked five IPMCs to improve actuation force. To amply the actuation force, rack-and-pin ion type hinge was used for the flapping device and insect (Cicadidae) wing was attached to the stacked IPMC actuator. In the flapping test, the device could generate flapping angle of 15$^{\circ}$ at 6Hz excitation by 2.5 voltage square wave input.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.189-195
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• 2019

In this study, experiments with a floater using flapping foils were performed to develop a new station keeping system that can maintain its position in waves without mooring lines. The foils applied to this system generate thrust using wave energy. In this experiment, the motion of the floater was analyzed in three different wave periods. Sixteen foils were attached to the cylindrical floater. The thrust of each foil was controlled by changing its azimuth angle, and three cases were compared. Based on the previous data, we made more precise measurements and found an optimal model for stationkeeping under each wave condition. We verified the potential of this new stationkeeping system using flapping foils, and conclusions were drawn from the results.

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.35-40
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• 2002

This paper deals with a thrust generation on flapping-airfoil by dynamic stall. Dynamic stall refers to a series of complicated aerodynamic phenomena accompanied by a stall delay in unsteady motion. In most cases, once it occurs, the dynamic stall may lead to an abrupt fluctuation of aerodynamic forces. An inverse $k\acute{a}rm\acute{a}n$ vortex has been considered as a main reason for a thrust generation. In this paper, however, we have found out that a thrust is closely related to reduced frequency and leading edge vortex in addition to inverse Karman vortex. In order to certify our opinion, picking and plunging motions were calculated with the parameter of amplitude and frequency by using the unsteady, incompressible Navier-Stokes flow solver with a two-equation turbulence model. For more efficient computation, it is parallelized by MPI programming method.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Visualization
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.31-38
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• 2021

The energy harvesting system using an inverted flag is analyzed by using an immersed boundary method to consider the fluid and solid interaction. The inverted flag flutters at a lower critical velocity than a conventional flag. A fluttering motion is classified into straight, symmetric, asymmetric, biased, and over flapping modes. The optimal energy harvesting efficiency is observed at the biased flapping mode. Using the three different machine learning algorithms, i.e., artificial neural network, random forest, support vector regression, the energy harvesting efficiency is predicted by taking bending rigidity, inclination angle, and flapping frequency as input variables. The R² value of the artificial neural network and random forest algorithms is observed to be more than 0.9.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.261-267
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• 2013

In this paper, wind tunnel test and analytical prediction are compared for result of flapping motion in helicopter forward flight condition. Tests were performed at low speed wind tunnel at Chungnam National University, test section of wind tunnel has 1.8 by 1.8 meter open-jet test section area. According to the results of measured data for aerodynamic performance of model rotor in forward flight. It has to observed the difference of analytical and measured results of power coefficient for fixed thrust coefficient. And calculated and measured data of helicopter rotor flapping angles in forward flight are compared for a model rotor in a wind tunnel. A test was conducted to verify the measured data of coning and lateral/longitudinal flapping angle with predicted values.