Influence of flapping wing unsteady motion on aerodynamic performance of horizontal tail

For analyzing the aerodynamic performance of horizontal tail during the pitching and plunging motion of flapping wing, the flapping wing micro aerial vehicle (FMAV) ASN211, which is independently developed by Northwestern Polytechnical University, is utilized in this work as the object of investigation. The actual computational model is built by combining the flapping wing and horizontal tail of ASN211 in tandem in 2D space. In order to obtain the unsteady motion of the flapping wing, the dynamic mesh and User-Defined Function is applied in this study to control the mesh deformation and to define its periodic motion respectively. The final computational results, which are obtained by fluent, indicate that the aerodynamic force of horizontal tail has periodic variation just as that of the flapping wing; furthermore, the period of the variations is the same as the motion of flapping wing. The results also reveal that the drag and moment of horizontal tail agree very well with the force under steady state. The differences between the lift of the horizontal tail and the force under steady condition are induced by the tall on the horizontal tail.