Journal of Shanghai University(Natural Science Edition) ›› 2015, Vol. 21 ›› Issue (4): 432-443.doi: 10.3969/j.issn.1007-2861.2014.02.009

• Metallurgical Materials • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Numerical simulation on energy acquisition of flapping airfoil with different forms of movement

HAN Wei1, SUN Xiao-jing2   

  1. (1. Shanghai Institute of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200072, China; 2. School of Energy and Power Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China)
  • Received:2014-01-10 Online:2015-08-31 Published:2015-08-31

Abstract: Airfoil flapping in wind or water flow can be either propulsion or power extraction. This study uses waveform parameters to control the flapping motion. Unsteady
numerical simulation is performed to study the effect of St number, amplitude and waveform of heave pitch motion on its energy extraction efficiency. The influence of different positions of pitching axis on the power extraction efficiency is also studied. The results show that the waveform-parameter and pitching axis location have a great influence on the flapping wing for power extraction in the parameter domain. Contrarily, the influence of waveform of heave motion is limited. When St is 1.332,θ0 is 76.3, and both βt and  βrare 1.13 (making the pitch waveform close to a sine wave) and 0.67 respectively, the flapping airfoil can extract power at the highest efficiency, which is 41%.

Key words: flapping airfoil, motion forms, unsteady numerical simulation, wind energy (water stream energy) acquisition

CLC Number: