Separation and Vorticity Transport in Massively-Unsteady Low Reynolds Number Flows

Abstract

Separation and Vorticity Transport in Massively-Unsteady Low Reynolds Number FlowsThere is no doubt that nature has existed as the very inspiration for many of technological achievements of today.Flight is no exception though our conventional methods of flight seem to be completely devoid of any flapping modes commonly seen in insects and birds.This is because the unsteady characteristics of natures keen flight capabilities is very difficult to study.However, as our computational and experimental methods of investigation have improved, our imagination again begins to turn to this one aspect of flight that has eluded man thus far.Birds and more specifically insects are capable of flying at such slow speeds and on such small scales that man's understanding of aerodynamics begins to breakdown and fails to account for the force necessary for insects to fly.This has led to serious complications in the design of a small semiautonomous flying robot or Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) that the military as well as a few civilian organizations have high interest in for multiple purposes.This thesis uses a user-defined computational Navier Stokes solver, called Vicar3d for reasons discussed within this thesis, as well as information from an experimental facility viii 6.4 Conclusions..