On The Partially Compliant Flapping-Wing Mechanisms And Their Dynamics

Flapping-wing micro air vehicle (FMAV) is a kind of vehicle which imitates the flying of insects or birds. In the military and civil area such vehicle has very important uses. Recently more and more researchers are attracted by the designing and fabricating of FMAV. It is obvious that miniaturization and lightweight of FMAV are the main trends in the development of FMAV.The aerodynamic forces required for the flying of FMAV are generated by the up-and-down motions of the wings which are driven by a mechanism, namely flapping-wing mechanism. For the purpose of miniaturization and lightweight of FMAV, to make a flapping-wing mechanism with simple structure, small size, light weight and better dynamic performance is of crucial importance. To this end, this thesis focus on some issues concerned with taking partially compliant mechanism as flapping-wing mechanism.The main work of this thesis is the followings:1. The comparison of partially compliant flapping-wing mechanism with rigid flapping-wing mechanism and rigid flapping-wing mechanism with springs is made. The results shows that partially compliant flapping-wing mechanism not only has the advantage of improvement the dynamic performance of flapping-wing mechanism, as does the rigid flapping-wing mechanism with springs, but has simpler structure than the other two kinds of flapping-wing mechanism as well.2. The technique of applying commercial software ADAMS(?) to the dynamic analysis of partially compliant mechanisms is studied. A partially compliant flapping-wing mechanism with small-length flexural pivots is taken as an example to test the technique. The results of simulation are quite well coincidence with that from solving the dynamic equation of the mechanism. This technique allows one to simulate partially compliant flapping-wing mechanism with ease, and can obtain the some results of dynamic analysis, such as deformation of compliant fragment, maximum of stress, which are not available by other methods.3. The systematically studies lead to propose six different configurations of partially compliant flapping-wing mechanism. The six compliant flapping-wing mechanisms are analysed and compared thoroughly by taking three parameters, i.e. sums of mass of whole links in the flapping-wing mechanism, the relative input-torque peak and the relative maximum bearing load at the pivot O, as the metrics.