Numerical analysis reveals spanwise morphing enhances lift-to-drag ratio in three-dimensional wings, highlighting its potential in aerospace applications.
A vast majority of animals bend their wings to enhance aerodynamic performance. The aerodynamic performance enhancement effect of a three-dimensional wing with spanwise bending wingtip at an angle of attack of 10 deg and Reynolds number of 1000 is investigated numerically. The inherent mechanism of the three-dimensional wing with spanwise bending wingtips differs from a two-dimensional plunging airfoil significantly due to the complex interaction between the chordwise vortex and spanwise vortex near the wingtip. Therefore, we develop the aerodynamic moment partitioning method considering the three-dimensional moving boundary to reveal its mechanism quantitatively. The effects of reduced frequency k and morphing amplitude A of the bending wing are analyzed and achieve a maximum L/D increase by 50.1% compared to a static wing. Insights from force partitioning reveal that bending morphing redistributes the spanwise vorticity convection flux, modifies the wingtip vortex structure, and significantly affects the vortex-induced force, ultimately improving aerodynamic performance. With increasing k and A, tip vortex structures evolve from vortex tubes to ringlike vortices, producing substantial L/D gains, while transitional semi-ring vortices achieve high control efficiency. This study highlights the potential of bending morphing to dynamically modify vortex structures and enhance aerodynamic performance.
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Xia et al. (2025) studied this question.
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