Effects of individual horizontal distance on the three-dimensional bionic flapping multi-wings in different schooling configurations

After billions of years of natural selection, flying animals with flapping wings have superior flight and mobility capabilities. The aerodynamic characteristics and the propulsion mechanism of bionic wings have attracted a large number of researchers because they will be beneficial to novel bio-inspired micro air or underwater vehicle design. Except the single activities, for fish, birds, and insects, there is a very popular and interesting biological clustering phenomenon known as schooling. Considering the real biological movements in schooling under low Reynolds number, the study of the flow mechanisms and thrust performance of bionic multiflapping wings in different schooling configurations could be applied to the design of future bionic flapping wing aircraft formation. The unsteady flow mechanisms and the thrust performance of three-dimensional multiflapping wings in three different schooling configurations are numerically investigated using the immersed boundary-lattice Boltzmann method with the Chinese TianHe-II supercomputer. The influences of different schooling configurations and individual distances on the thrust performance of multiflapping wings are thoroughly investigated. Numerical results indicate that the individual horizontal distance has great effects on the thrust performance of multiflapping wings in schooling, and the average thrust coefficient of each flapping wing in different schooling configurations at a specific individual horizontal distance is larger than that of the single flapping wing. There is an optimum distance for different schooling configurations, where the individual interaction lead to best propulsion performance. Different from the simple tandem schooling, the closer the individual distance, the better the overall thrust performance obtained for triangle and diamond schooling.