Mizuki Nakamura

Visualization of flow field around a Micro Air Vehicle with mechanical flapper

The purpose of this investigation is to develop the flapping-wing micro air vehicles based on dragonflies. In order to reduce weight of mechanical flapper, MEMS technologies were introduced. An etching process was utilized for manufacturing the light weight wings. As a result, the weight of the mechanical flapper was 62 % lighter than that of the previous one. The flow fields around the mechanical flapper were almost the same as the dragonfly. The leading edge separation and wake capture process can be observed. The aerodynamic force of the mechanical flapper was proportional to the second powers of the flapping frequency. The experimental results showed that the flapping frequency for the flight should be required over 40 Hz at two pair of wings such as the dragonfly.