Space-Time Computational Techniques for the Aerodynamics of Flapping Wings

Abstract

We present the special space-time computational techniques we have introduced recently for computation of flow problems with moving and deforming solid surfaces. The techniques have been designed in the context of the deforming-spatial-domain/stabilized space-time formulation, which was developed by the Team for Advanced Flow Simulation and Modeling for computation of flow problems with moving boundaries and interfaces. The special space-time techniques are based on using, in the space-time flow computations, non-uniform rational B-splines (NURBS) basis functions for the temporal representation of the motion and deformation of the solid surfaces and also for the motion and deformation of the volume meshes computed. This provides a better temporal representation of the solid surfaces and a more effective way of handling the volume-mesh motion. We apply these techniques to computation of the aerodynamics of flapping wings, specifically locust wings, where the prescribed motion and deformation of the wings are based on digital data extracted from the videos of the locust in a wind tunnel. We report results from the preliminary computations.