Comparative study between a discrete vortex method and an immersed boundary–lattice Boltzmann method in 2D flapping flight analysis

Abstract

Numerical analysis of the flapping flight of insects has attracted great attention because of the expectation for insect-inspired micro air vehicles. A lot of numerical methods for the insect flight have been proposed, and they can be classified into two categories: inviscid flow solvers and viscous flow solvers. The discrete vortex method (DVM) has been regarded as a successful method in the first category, and the immersed boundary–lattice Boltzmann method (IB-LBM) has recently been developed as an efficient method in the second category. However, a detailed comparative study between these methods has not been sufficiently performed. In this study, we compare the DVM with the IB-LBM in two-dimensional flapping flight analysis. As a result, it is found that the aerodynamic forces obtained by the DVM are comparable to those by the IB-LBM, when the effect of separated vortices is not so accumulated, and when the forward speed of the model is smaller than the flapping speed. In addition, the DVM has a difficulty in estimating the aerodynamic torque. In terms of the computational time, the DVM is much faster than the IB-LBM. This result suggests that the DVM can be used for massive parametric studies or optimizations in flapping flight analysis, although there remain many issues in its accuracy.