A comprehensive numerical simulation of fluid dynamics based study of a pleated wing section based on the wing of Aeshna Cyanea has been performed at ultra-low Reynolds number corresponding to the gliding flight of these dragonflies in order to explore the potential applications of pleated airfoils for micro air vehicle applications. The simulation employs an unstructured triangular mesh based on finite volume discretization done in the ANSYS-14.0 using WorkBench14.0.Whenever, dragonfly wing interacts with the fluid (air taken), several forces and vibrations results out. These forces and vibrations cause certain changes over the dimensional structure over the wing and also influence the flows characteristics. A critical assessment of the computed results was performed.
In this work, various flow patterns and aerodynamic performance of pleated airfoil has been obtained at ultra-low Reynolds numbers (2000-3000) at different angle of attacks (AOA) ranging from 0° to 15°. Also there effects on coefficient of Lift and Drag have been analysed. The simulations demonstrate that pleated airfoil produces higher lift and moderate drag that lead to an aerodynamic performance and hence pleated airfoil is an excellent choice for a fixed wing micro-air vehicle application.