| Description | We are pleased to welcome Oscar Flores, Associate Professor at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid for a UW ME seminar on Tuesday, March 1, 2022 at 3:30pm PT. About the seminar:
From the aerodynamic efficiency of migratory birds to the maneuverability of hummingbirds, or the versatility of dragonflies, Nature’s small flyers (and swimmers) excel in every aspect of locomotion. Consequently, there is considerable interest in the engineering community in developing bioinspired drones that generate lift and thrust with flapping wings/fins. However, the number of designs that reach the expected performance is relatively low. Part of the problem is the complex interplay between the low-Reynolds-number aerodynamics of the flapping wings/fins, their flexibility, and the dynamic response of the drone in a non-uniform free-stream, resulting in a very rich non-linear problem with a huge parametric space. In this talk, I will discuss recent results obtained by my research group on two configurations of increasing complexity, where the flexibility of the wings and the interactions between wings and wakes are paramount for the generation of thrust. First, I will present results from numerical simulations of a pair of high-aspect-ratio flapping wings in tandem configuration, loosely based on the wings of dragonflies. I will show how the aerodynamic response is influenced by the spanwise bending of the wings and by the interaction of the hindwing with the forewing’s wake. Second, I will present results from numerical simulations of a pair of self-propelled flexible flappers of small span, akin to two fish swimming in line. I will discuss how the flappers adjust their relative position because of the hydrodynamic interactions. The talk will conclude with some ideas on how to extract simplified models from the data. About the speaker:
Oscar Flores is an Associate Professor in the Bioengineering and Aerospace Department of the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), where he works on problems related to fundamental phenomena appearing in unsteady flows, and their applications in different branches of engineering and medicine. Before arriving at the UC3M in 2011, he graduated in Aerospace Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Madrid and received graduate training in computational fluid mechanics and turbulence. Upon completion of his graduate training, he worked as a Research Associate at the University of Washington (2008-2011), where he worked on stably stratified turbulence in the surface layer of the atmosphere. He was the Academic Director of the undergraduate program in Aerospace Engineering of the UC3M from 2015 to 2020, and he is currently enjoying a sabbatical at the University of Washington. This seminar is part of the ME Research Seminar Series and qualifies for ME520 credit for enrolled students. |
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