Open Access

ARTICLE

Unsteady 3D Boundary Element Method for Oscillating Wing

Marco La Mantia¹, Peter Dabnichki^1,2

1 School of Engineering and Materials Science, Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, United Kingdom
2 Corresponding author. Email: p.dabnichki@qmul.ac.uk

Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences 2008, 33(2), 131-154. https://doi.org/10.3970/cmes.2008.033.131

Abstract

A potential flow based boundary element method was devised to obtain the hydrodynamic forces acting on oscillating wings. A new formulation of the unsteady Kutta condition, postulating a finite pressure difference at the trailing edge of the flapping wing and proposed earlier by the authors, is implemented in the numerical procedure. A comparison with published experimental data (Read et al., 2003) is carried out and the three-dimensional computational results showed good agreement, especially if compared with a similar two-dimensional numerical approach (La Mantia and Dabnichki, 2008) and the potential analytical model of Garrick (1936). The need of considering the differences between the actual flow conditions and the assumptions of the computational model (e.g. to estimate inertia related effects) is underlined and the potential three-dimensional code is deemed to be a further step in the direction of a novel physically based modelling of flapping flight.

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