Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV) whose wingspan is of the order of a few centimeters cannot be physically built or flown today; they can be designed, tested, flown and studied on the computer using numerical simulation technique. While finalizing a design is quite significant in case of MAV, understanding the flow field environment in which MAVs fly is equally a requirement. The flow field environments encountered by Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) are fundamentally unsteady-whether for fixed-wing,

more »

... ing or flapping-wing configurations. High lift generation is typically a result of unsteady fluid flow phenomena in flapping flight of small birds and insects. Along with a good understanding of flow field environment of an MAV the insight into the aerodynamics characteristics of it calls for an investigation. These characteristics greatly influence the design of a prototype of an MAV which can serve the purpose of a specific application. As a first step towards exploring the flow environment and computing the aerodynamic characteristics of a smaller MAV we have chosen a fixed wing MAV for which a study is attempted considering a three dimensional flow field. In the present study, unsteady aerodynamic analysis of the MAV has been done using commercial CFD solver ANSYS FLUENT. The analysis aim at predicting aerodynamic characteristics such as flow visualization, pressure plots, velocity plots and also stream line over the wing. During the study it is observed that the pressure and velocity are both compared well for the mid-range angle of attacks 0 and 20 degree AOA.