On the Dynamics of Flexible Plates under Rotational Motions

The reconfiguration of low-aspect-ratio flexible plates, required power and induced flow under pure rotation were experimentally inspected for various plate stiffness and angular velocities omega. Particle tracking velocimetry (PTV) and particle image velocimetry (PIV) were used to characterize the plate deformation along their span as well as the flow and turbulence statistics in the vicinity of the structures. Results show the characteristic role of stiffness and omega in modulating the structure reconfiguration, power required and induced flow. The inspected configurations allowed inspecting various plate deformations ranging from minor to extreme bending over 90 degrees between the tangents of the two tips. Regardless of the case, the plates did not undergo noticeable deformation in the last approximate to 30% of the span. Location of the maximum deformation along the plate followed a trend s(m) proportional to log(Ca), where Ca is the Cauchy number, which indicated that s(m) is roughly fixed at sufficiently large Ca. The angle (alpha) between the plate in the vicinity of the tip and the tangential vector of the motions exhibited two distinctive, nearly-linear trends as a function of Ca, within Ca is an element of (0, 15) and Ca is an element of (20, 70 ), with a matching within these Ca at Ca >70, alpha approximate to 45 degrees. Induced flow revealed a local maximum of the turbulence levels at around 60% of the span of the plate; however, the largest turbulence enhancement occurred near the tip. Flexibility of the plate strongly modulated the spatial distribution of small-scale vortical structures; they were located along the plate wake in the stiffer plate and relatively concentrated near the tip in the low-stiffness plate. Due to relatively large deformation, rotational and wake effects, a simple formulation for predicting the mean reconfiguration showed offset; however, a bulk, constant factor on omega accounted for the offset between predictions and measurements at deformation reaching approximate to 60 degrees between the tips.