Abstract:
The flapping-wing, inspired by natural flyers, is believed as a new conceptual flight technology with potential valuable applications. However, the unusual features of flapping-wings, such as complex strong unsteady low Reynolds number aerodynamics and large number of design variables associated with both large flapping motion and shape geometries, pose great challenges for aerodynamic design/optimization. This paper discusses the development and application of unsteady aerodynamic optimization for flapping wing from the aspects of aerodynamic model, parameterization of design variables and optimizing strategies. The advances are reviewed in aerodynamic optimization techniques for flapping wing the traditional method the modern unsteady adjoint approach. Some remarks and speculations are given on the state-of-the-art of this research field.