Akihisa Konno

The purpose of this research is to clarify generation mechanism of aerodynamic force of flapping airfoil imitating insect's flight. Hovering flights are important to develop micro air vehicles (MAV) for rescue inquiry devices of disaster area. In order to understand hovering flights of insects, aerodynamic lifting force and flow field around a flapping machine was measured by using time-series analysis of PIV and numerical simulation. PIV measurements were carried out with the flapping machine which was 10 times expanding model of real insects. Experimental results showed a flapping airfoil holds a strong vorticity near the bottom dead center. The leading-edge vortex and the wake-capture process were observed by the PIV measurement, which are important to understand insect's flight. Moreover, these processes generate large amount of aerodynamic force compare to the sinusoidal flapping motion. It reveals that feathering motion is important to realize the hovering flight.