Journals Proceedings

Abstract

Twisted wing (TW) is a morphing technique that particularly suitable for a membrane wings MAV. However, the aerodynamic advantages of TW application on MAV wing scale are still needed to be explored. This is because the MAV design challenge is still concentrated in generating enough lift during flight. Thus, the present research is carried out to acquire an understanding of the basic aerodynamic performance of a TW MAV design. Based on fluid structure interaction (FSI) simulation, a comparative study with the baseline membrane and rigid wing performances is carried out to elucidate the superiority of the morphing wing lift and drag performance. The results show that, the TW configuration has significantly produced the highest CL and CD distribution. At a certain angle of attack (AOA), the TW configuration can generate up to 200% better CL than to the other wing types. However, TW also produced significantly higher drag than to the other wings. This drag results has overwhelm the successive increase in lift generation and consequently plunge the overall TW aerodynamic efficiency.