Aerodynamic effects of diffusion angles of bristle wings at different Reynolds numbers

Abstract The aerodynamic layout of a bristle wing has an influence on its flight performance. The aerodynamic performance of a bristle wing at a low Reynolds number seems to be related to its bristle diffusion angle compared with that of a vehicle at a high Reynolds number. We designed three different diffusion angles for numerical simulation under steady-state incoming flow with a fixed angle of attack and observed the changes of drag and shear force acting on bristle wings with different diffusion angles. We found that the effect of bristle diffusion angle on drag coefficient decreases with the increase of Reynolds number, which is related to the fact that leakage rate exhibits very different characteristics at low and high Reynolds numbers. This is related to the fact that the leakage rate exhibits very different characteristics at low and high Reynolds numbers.