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Flow development and leading edge vorticity in bristled insect wings

Small flying insects such as the tiny thrip Gynaikothrips ficorum have wings with bristles attached to a solid shaft instead of solid membranes. Air passing through the bristle fringe, however, makes bristled insect wings less effective for aerodynamic force production. In this study, we quantified...

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Autores principales: O’Callaghan, Felicity, Lehmann, Fritz-Olaf
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10006064/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36810678
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00359-023-01617-x
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author O’Callaghan, Felicity
Lehmann, Fritz-Olaf
author_facet O’Callaghan, Felicity
Lehmann, Fritz-Olaf
author_sort O’Callaghan, Felicity
collection PubMed
description Small flying insects such as the tiny thrip Gynaikothrips ficorum have wings with bristles attached to a solid shaft instead of solid membranes. Air passing through the bristle fringe, however, makes bristled insect wings less effective for aerodynamic force production. In this study, we quantified the ability of bristled wings to generate a leading edge vortex (LEV) for lift support during wing flapping, scored its circulation during wing translation, and investigated its behaviour at the stroke reversals. The data were measured in robotic model wings flapping with a generic kinematic pattern at Reynolds number of ~ 3.4, while applying two-dimensional particle image velocimetry. We found that aerodynamic performance due to LEV circulation linearly decreases with increasing bristle spacing. The wings of Gynaikothrips ficorum might thus produce approximately 9% less aerodynamic force for flight than a solid membranous wing. At the stroke reversals, leading and trailing edge vortices dissipate quickly within no more than ~ 2% of the stroke cycle duration. This elevated dissipation makes vortex shedding obsolete during the reversals and allows a quick build-up of counter-vorticity when the wing reverses flapping direction. In sum, our findings highlight the flow conditions associated with bristled wing design in insects and are thus significant for assessing biological fitness and dispersal of insects flying in a viscosity-dominated fluid regime.
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spelling pubmed-100060642023-03-12 Flow development and leading edge vorticity in bristled insect wings O’Callaghan, Felicity Lehmann, Fritz-Olaf J Comp Physiol A Neuroethol Sens Neural Behav Physiol Original Paper Small flying insects such as the tiny thrip Gynaikothrips ficorum have wings with bristles attached to a solid shaft instead of solid membranes. Air passing through the bristle fringe, however, makes bristled insect wings less effective for aerodynamic force production. In this study, we quantified the ability of bristled wings to generate a leading edge vortex (LEV) for lift support during wing flapping, scored its circulation during wing translation, and investigated its behaviour at the stroke reversals. The data were measured in robotic model wings flapping with a generic kinematic pattern at Reynolds number of ~ 3.4, while applying two-dimensional particle image velocimetry. We found that aerodynamic performance due to LEV circulation linearly decreases with increasing bristle spacing. The wings of Gynaikothrips ficorum might thus produce approximately 9% less aerodynamic force for flight than a solid membranous wing. At the stroke reversals, leading and trailing edge vortices dissipate quickly within no more than ~ 2% of the stroke cycle duration. This elevated dissipation makes vortex shedding obsolete during the reversals and allows a quick build-up of counter-vorticity when the wing reverses flapping direction. In sum, our findings highlight the flow conditions associated with bristled wing design in insects and are thus significant for assessing biological fitness and dispersal of insects flying in a viscosity-dominated fluid regime. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2023-02-22 2023 /pmc/articles/PMC10006064/ /pubmed/36810678 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00359-023-01617-x Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Original Paper
O’Callaghan, Felicity
Lehmann, Fritz-Olaf
Flow development and leading edge vorticity in bristled insect wings
title Flow development and leading edge vorticity in bristled insect wings
title_full Flow development and leading edge vorticity in bristled insect wings
title_fullStr Flow development and leading edge vorticity in bristled insect wings
title_full_unstemmed Flow development and leading edge vorticity in bristled insect wings
title_short Flow development and leading edge vorticity in bristled insect wings
title_sort flow development and leading edge vorticity in bristled insect wings
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10006064/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36810678
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00359-023-01617-x
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