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1. Fluid-structure Interaction of Flexible Flapping Wings at High Altitude Conditions

   https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2020-1781  

   Sridhar, Madhu; Kang, Chang-Kwon; Landrum, D Brian; Aono, Hikaru (January 2020, AIAA Scitech 2020 Forum)

   The long-range migration of Monarch butterflies extends over 4000 km. Monarchs experience varying density conditions during migration. Monarchs have been spotted at 1200 m during migration and overwinter at 3000 m, where the air density is lower than at the sea-level. Furthermore, Monarch butterflies have large flexible wings which deform significantly during flight. In this study, we test the hypothesis that the aerodynamic performance of the Monarch wing improves at reduced density conditions at higher altitudes. A design space with air density and stroke plane angle as design variables is constructed to evaluate the effects of fluid-structure interaction at high altitudes in the Reynolds number regime of Re = O(10^3). The effects of chordwise wing flexibility and the aerodynamic and structural response at varying densities are investigated by solving the Navier-Stokes equations, fully coupled to a structural dynamics solver at the Monarch scale. The lift, thrust and power are calculated in the design space. Our results show that lift increases with the stroke plane angle and the air density, whereas the thrust remains close to zero. The mean power required reduces with the altitude, eventually becoming negative at 3000 m. These results suggest that at lower altitudes near sea level, Monarchs can leverage the relatively large magnitude of their lift and thrust forces. At higher altitudes butterflies can fly while minimizing the power. 

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2. Aeroelastic Characterization of Real and Artificial Monarch Butterfly Wings

   https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2020-2002  

   Twigg, Rachel; Sridhar, Madhu; Pohly, Jeremy A.; Hildebrandt, Nicholas; Kang, Chang-Kwon; Landrum, D Brian; Roh, Kyung-Ho; Salzwedel, Samantha (January 2020, AIAA Scitech 2020 Forum)

   The annual migration of monarch butterflies, Danaus plexippus, from their summer breeding grounds in North America to their overwintering sites in Mexico can span over 4000 kilometers. Little is known about the aerodynamic mechanism behind this extended flight. This study is motivated by the hypothesis that their flapping wing flight is enhanced by fluid-structure interactions. The objective of this study to quantify the aeroelastic performance of monarch butterfly wings and apply those values in the creation of an artificial wing with an end goal of creating a biomimetic micro-air vehicle. A micro-CT scan, force-deflection measurements, and a finite element solver on real monarch butterfly wings were used to determine the density and elastic modulus. These structural parameters were then used to create a monarch butterfly inspired artificial wing. A solidification process was used to adhere 3D printed vein structures to a membrane. The performance of the artificial butterfly wing was tested by measuring the lift at flapping frequencies between 6.3 and 14 Hz. Our results show that the elastic modulus of a real wing is 1.8 GPa along the span and 0.20 GPa along the chord, suggesting that the butterfly wing material is highly anisotropic. Real right forewings performed optimally at approximately 10 Hz, the flapping frequency of a live monarch butterfly, with a peak force of 4 mN. The artificial wing performed optimally at approximately 8 Hz with a peak force of 5 mN. 

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3. First lift-off and flight performance of a tailless flapping-wing aerial robot in high-altitude environments

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-36174-5  

   Tsuchiya, Shu; Aono, Hikaru; Asai, Keisuke; Nonomura, Taku; Ozawa, Yuta; Anyoji, Masayuki; Ando, Noriyasu; Kang, Chang-kwon; Pohly, Jeremy (December 2023, Scientific Reports)

   Abstract Flapping flight of animals has captured the interest of researchers due to their impressive flight capabilities across diverse environments including mountains, oceans, forests, and urban areas. Despite the significant progress made in understanding flapping flight, high-altitude flight as showcased by many migrating animals remains underexplored. At high-altitudes, air density is low, and it is challenging to produce lift. Here we demonstrate a first lift-off of a flapping wing robot in a low-density environment through wing size and motion scaling. Force measurements showed that the lift remained high at 0.14 N despite a 66% reduction of air density from the sea-level condition. The flapping amplitude increased from 148 to 233 degrees, while the pitch amplitude remained nearly constant at 38.2 degrees. The combined effect is that the flapping-wing robot benefited from the angle of attack that is characteristic of flying animals. Our results suggest that it is not a simple increase in the flapping frequency, but a coordinated increase in the wing size and reduction in flapping frequency enables the flight in lower density condition. The key mechanism is to preserve the passive rotations due to wing deformation, confirmed by a bioinspired scaling relationship. Our results highlight the feasibility of flight under a low-density, high-altitude environment due to leveraging unsteady aerodynamic mechanisms unique to flapping wings. We anticipate our experimental demonstration to be a starting point for more sophisticated flapping wing models and robots for autonomous multi-altitude sensing. Furthermore, it is a preliminary step towards flapping wing flight in the ultra-low density Martian atmosphere. 

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4. Quasi-steady aerodynamic theory under-predicts glide performance in flying snakes

   https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.247989  

   Yeaton, Isaac J; Ross, Shane D; Socha, John J (October 2024, Journal of Experimental Biology)

   Flying snakes (genus Chrysopelea) glide without the use of wings. Instead, they splay their ribs and undulate through the air. A snake's ability to glide depends on how well its morphing wing-body produces lift and drag forces. However, previous kinematics experiments under-resolved the body, making it impossible to estimate the aerodynamic load on the animal or to quantify the different wing configurations throughout the glide. Here, we present new kinematic analyses of a previous glide experiment, and use the results to test a theoretical model of flying snake aerodynamics using previously measured lift and drag coefficients to estimate the aerodynamic forces. This analysis is enabled by new measurements of the center of mass motion based on experimental data. We found that quasi-steady aerodynamic theory under-predicts lift by 35% and over-predicts drag by 40%. We also quantified the relative spacing of the body as the snake translates through the air. In steep glides, the body is generally not positioned to experience tandem effects from wake interaction during the glide. These results suggest that unsteady 3D effects, with appreciable force enhancement, are important for snake flight. Future work can use the kinematics data presented herein to form test conditions for physical modeling, as well as computational studies to understand unsteady fluid dynamics effects on snake flight. 

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5. Quasi three-dimensional deformable blade element and unsteady vortex lattice reduced-order modeling of fluid–structure interaction in flapping wings

   https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0129128  

   Schwab, R.; Reade, J.; Jankauski, M. (December 2022, Physics of Fluids)

   Flapping, flexible insect wings deform under inertial and fluid loading. Deformation influences aerodynamic force generation and sensorimotor control, and is thus important to insect flight mechanics. Conventional flapping wing fluid–structure interaction models provide detailed information about wing deformation and the surrounding flow structure, but are impractical in parameter studies due to their considerable computational demands. Here, we develop two quasi three-dimensional reduced-order models (ROMs) capable of describing the propulsive forces/moments and deformation profiles of flexible wings. The first is based on deformable blade element theory (DBET) and the second is based on the unsteady vortex lattice method (UVLM). Both rely on a modal-truncation based structural solver. We apply each model to estimate the aeromechanics of a thin, flapping flat plate with a rigid leading edge, and compare ROM findings to those produced by a coupled fluid dynamics/finite element computational solver. The ROMs predict wing deformation with good accuracy even for relatively large deformations of 25% of the chord length. Aerodynamic loading normal to the wing's rotation plane is well captured by the ROMs, though model errors are larger for in-plane loading. We then perform a parameter sweep to understand how wing flexibility and mass affect peak deflection, mean lift and average power. All models indicate that flexible wings produce less lift but require lower average power to flap. Importantly, these studies highlight the computational efficiency of the ROMs—compared to the convention modeling approach, the UVLM and DBET ROMs solve 4 and 6 orders of magnitude faster, respectively. 

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