Zverkov I.D.   Kryukov A.V.   Evtushok G.Y.  

The choosing of aerodynamic scheme for human-powered ornithopter

Reporter: Zverkov I.D.

The task of engineering and design of flapping flight aircraft has engaged the attention of scientists and engineers. Anyone may see with one’s own eyes the birds, using that flight principle, can, on the one hand, fly and alight in tough terrains, and on the other hand, they can perform long passages, an in the end, the flight of bird is almost inaudible. Thus, for long time, the mankind has dreamed to fly as the birds, but scientific and practical approach to solution of that task was found just recently. Leonardo da Vinci, perhaps, was the first who presented a description of some man-powered flapping device that, probably could get off the ground by use of that power. By now, after 300 years, the mankind got quite advanced branch of industry, i.e. the Aviation. Using propeller propulsion force or jet blast, airplanes fly successfully enough within wide range of speeds. However, advancement in ornithopters designing is very modest. Nowadays, there are only two ornithopters that flew manned more or less successfully. The first attempt of the man-powered ornithoptr flight was performed in 2010 by the group form University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies. Despite that, in recent times, a lot of works have been published, that are devoted to studying of flapping wing, and no more manned ornithopters were constructed.
In authors’ opinion, it is related to the fact that duplication of natural structures in ornithopters is rather complicated task, both as to theoretical model development, and building of real engineering structure. Therefore, this work proposes, on the one hand, to use the ornithopter simple kinematic model, and, on the other hand, to reveal the correlation between general ornithopter kinematic and physical parameters and the propulsion that construction is available to provide. It will allow the engineers, without conducting of expensive aeronautical and time-consuming full-scale and numerical experiments, to determine the main parameters of future manned ornithopter driven by man-power. In the article some recommendation about very few weighing wing structure is given.


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