Reduced-Order Modeling of a Heaving Airfoil

Abstract

A reduced-order model of a flapping airfoil is developed using Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD). The proper basis functions, developed from snapshots of full Navier-Stokes simulations, are used for a Galerkin projection of the governing equations. The resulting coupled, nonlinear ordinary di.erential equations have a low dimension because the first few basis members capture most of the energy of the flow. The reduced-order model is used to simulate heaving motions that are both similar to and different from the motion(s) used to generate the basis functions, and the errors in the model are quantified. Several methods are used to generate mode sets that can be used over a range of heaving parameters, including snapshots from one, two, and multiple Navier-Stokes simulations. As snapshots from additional simulations are added to the decomposition, the mode sets become richer and can simulate a wider range of parameter space, at some computational cost. Whereas the POD method is fully applicable in three dimensions, the simulation technique based on a body-fixed and body-fitted grid suffers large overhead when extended to three dimensions. To reduce the overhead, an embedding technique is discussed which embeds the solid wing into a fixed Cartesian grid. The wing, which can now have multiple pieces and also be flexible, is represented by a distribution of body forces. This distribution is determined to give exactly the flow around a flapping wing.