An efficient fluid-structure interaction method for conceptual design of flexible micro air vehicle wings: Development, comparison, and application

This thesis summarizes the development, comparison, and applications of an efficient fluid-structure interaction method capable of simulating the effects that wing flexibility has on micro air vehicle (MAV) performance. Micro air vehicles wing designs often incorporate flexible wing structures that mimic the skeleton / membrane designs found in natural flyers such as bats and insects. However, accurate performance prediction for these wings requires the coupling of the simulation of the fluid physics around the wing and the simulation of the structural deformation. These fluid-structure interaction (FSI) simulations are often accomplished using high fidelity, computationally expensive techniques such as computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for the fluid physics and nonlinear finite element analysis (FEA) for the structural simulation. The main drawback of these methods, especially for use simulating vehicles that are able to be manufactured relatively quickly, is that the computational cost required to perform relevant trade studies on the design is prohibitively large and time-consuming. The main goal of this research is the development of a coupled fluid-structure interaction method computationally efficient and accurate enough to be used for conceptual design of micro air vehicles. An advanced potential flow model is used to calculate aerodynamic performance and loading, while a simplified finite element structural model using frame and shell elements calculates the wing deflection due to aerodynamic loading. The contents of this thesis include a literature survey of current approaches, an introduction to the efficient FSI formulation, comparison of the presented FSI method with higher-fidelity simulation methods, demonstrations of the method's capability for tradeoff and optimization studies, and an overview of contributions to a nonlinear dynamic algorithm for the simulation of flapping flight.