On the Dynamics of Flexible Plates under Rotational Motions

Shifeng Fu, Yaqing Jin, Jin-Tae Kim, Zhongyu Mao, Yuan Zheng and Leonardo P. Chamorro
Additional contact information
Shifeng Fu: College of Water Conservancy and Hydropower Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 210024, China
Yaqing Jin: Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
Jin-Tae Kim: Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
Zhongyu Mao: Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
Yuan Zheng: College of Water Conservancy and Hydropower Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 210024, China
Leonardo P. Chamorro: Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801, USA

Energies, 2018, vol. 11, issue 12, 1-11

Abstract: The reconfiguration of low-aspect-ratio flexible plates, required power and induced flow under pure rotation were experimentally inspected for various plate stiffness and angular velocities ? . Particle tracking velocimetry (PTV) and particle image velocimetry (PIV) were used to characterize the plate deformation along their span as well as the flow and turbulence statistics in the vicinity of the structures. Results show the characteristic role of stiffness and ? in modulating the structure reconfiguration, power required and induced flow. The inspected configurations allowed inspecting various plate deformations ranging from minor to extreme bending over 90 ? between the tangents of the two tips. Regardless of the case, the plates did not undergo noticeable deformation in the last ?30% of the span. Location of the maximum deformation along the plate followed a trend s m ? l o g ( C a ) , where C a is the Cauchy number, which indicated that s m is roughly fixed at sufficiently large C a . The angle ( ? ) between the plate in the vicinity of the tip and the tangential vector of the motions exhibited two distinctive, nearly-linear trends as a function of C a , within C a ? ( 0 , 15 ) and C a ? ( 20 , 70 ) , with a matching within these C a at C a > 70 , ? ? 45 ? . Induced flow revealed a local maximum of the turbulence levels at around 60% of the span of the plate; however, the largest turbulence enhancement occurred near the tip. Flexibility of the plate strongly modulated the spatial distribution of small-scale vortical structures; they were located along the plate wake in the stiffer plate and relatively concentrated near the tip in the low-stiffness plate. Due to relatively large deformation, rotational and wake effects, a simple formulation for predicting the mean reconfiguration showed offset; however, a bulk, constant factor on ? accounted for the offset between predictions and measurements at deformation reaching ? 60 ? between the tips.

Keywords: PIV; plate oscillation; rotation; turbulence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/11/12/3384/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/11/12/3384/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:11:y:2018:i:12:p:3384-:d:187445

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().