Unsteady-State Aerodynamic Performance of MEMS Wings

The unsteady-state aerodynamic performance results of various MEMS-fabricated titanium-alloy wing designs are presented. These wing are tested in a high-quality low-speed wind tunnel with velocity uniformity of 0.5%.. For the first time, we have identified the importance of spanwise stiffness effect in generating the leading edge vortices. These vortices, generated around each wing, cause a low-pressure region to be developed across the top of the wing and provided a high lift coefficient, and hence large lift can be generated. We also introduce a novel stiffness-enhanced titanium-alloy MEMS wing fabrication technique to increase the strength at the leading edge of the wing. In terms of aerodynamic performance, the 10x3T5S20.s1 MEMS wing design is able to generate up to 9 grams of lift when flaps at 20 Hz. In addition, for the first time, we have identified the effect of the inboard and outboard regions in relation to thrust and lift generations, respectively.

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