2025/07/10 by Antoine Papillon, Mathieu Olivier, Papillon, Antoine +1
Engineering · #76-10 #Biomimetic flight and propulsion mechanisms #FOS: Physical sciences #Fluid Dynamics (physics.flu-dyn) #Fluid Dynamics and Turbulent Flows #Fluid Dynamics and Vibration Analysis
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2507.07873
openalex publication_date 2025/07/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
This research investigates the three-dimensional effects of flow around a pair of flapping wings undergoing clap-and-fling interactions through harmonic in-plane motions combining pitching, heaving, and deviation. Both wings mirror each other in their movements. Baseline parameters were selected based on efficient configurations from a previous two-dimensional study. Simulations at a Reynolds number of 800 were conducted on wings in a thrust configuration utilizing the clap-and-fling mechanism. Rectangular flat-plate wings with various aspect ratios were evaluated to assess the impact of three-dimensional effects on performance. Results were compared with equivalent two-dimensional computations. It was found that the relative decrease in cycle-averaged efficiency due to three-dimensional effects can be limited to approximately 5.59% by using wings with an aspect ratio of 8, the largest considered in this work. Moreover, wing proximity inherent to clap-and-fling kinematics helps mitigate adverse three-dimensional effects.