Study of Wing Shapes Influence on MAV Aerodynamic Coefficients

In recent years, design of small aircrafts are studied and extensively developed. One of the most important of these aircrafts is micro aerial vehicles (MAVs). As part of aerodynamic design of MAVs, the wing design is important. In fact, the main part of this design is to find an appropriate shape for the wing. In this work, influence of the wing shape at low Reynolds number flow is investigated using several planforms. Results show that as aspect ratio decreases, the lift-curve slope decreases as predicted by aerodynamic theory. The performance of the inverse Zimmerman and rectangular planforms are higher than elliptic and Zimmerman planforms. Also, the inverse Zimmerman planform is less influenced with the side flow. Effects of the Reynolds number and the wing edges on aerodynamic coefficients are discussed. The CFD computations are performed, and verified with the experimental data and aerodynamic theory.