Development of Co-rotational Finite Elements and Application for Fluid-Structure Interaction in Biomimetic Flexible Wing

Abstract

Recent advance in the MAVs having biomimetic wing, i.e., flapping wing MAVs, has led to greater attention being paid to the interaction between the structural dynamics of the wing and its aerodynamics, both of which are closely related to the performance of the wing. In this dissertation, co-rotational (CR) finite elements for geometrically nonlinear structural analysis are developed. Specifically, planar elements including two-dimensional beam and membrane elements, three-dimensional beam and shell elements, obeying the kinematics based on the CR formulation, are developed. Multi-components approach using three-dimensional beam and shell elements is then developed in order to consider a realistic insect-like flexible wing. In this procedure, both serial version using globalized Lagrange multiplier and parallel version employing domain decomposition technique, i.e., FETI-local method, are implemented. Each structural analysis is validated by comparing with the analytical solutions and the predictions obtained by the commercial software in the static and time-transient problems. The present multi-components analysis is then verified by comparing with the results predicted by the existing multi-body dynamics software, DYMORE, and the relevant computational costs are compared. Using the present structural analysis, fluid-structure interaction framework is developed. In the present FSI framework, the relevant CFD solutions and the implicit coupling methodology are employed. Moreover, the FSI analysis for both two-dimensional and three-dimensional problems are validated by comparing with the experimental results. Finally, the FSI analysis for three-dimensional realistic insect-like wing configuration is accomplished. During these numerical investigation, various physical characteristics induced by the biomimetic flexible wing are demonstrated.