Experimental investigation of flexible hawkmoth-like wings on the wing-wake interaction in hovering flight

To study wing-wake interaction for various wing flexibilities, force measurements and digital particle image velocimetry were carried out on flapping hawkmoth-like wings in a water tank. Wing thickness was employed as a design variable for the wing flexibility distributions. Abrupt flap-down and phase delay in flexible wings influenced the behaviors of the Leading-Edge Vortex (LEV) and Trailing-Edge Vortex (TEV), generated by the previous stroke. While the rigid wing exhibited a detached LEV at the end of the stroke, wing with specific flexibilities obtained attached LEVs. The attached LEVs induced a relatively rapid flow toward the wing surface as a result of encountering the TEV, and the flow caused a higher lift peak. On the other hand, the wings with larger wing deformations generated distinctive changes in LEV and TEV behaviors. The flap-down helped the TEV form closer to the wing surface, and it thus caused a downwash rather than wing-wake interaction. Furthermore, the most flexible wing had a newly-formed pair of LEVs above the wing during the wing reversal, thereby being not able to generate the wing-wake interaction. These results help to understand the different vortex structures generated by flexible wings during the wing reversal and the corresponding effects of wing-wake interaction.