Accession Number:

ADA437939

Title:

Computation and Modeling of Insect Flight

Descriptive Note:

Final rept.

Corporate Author:

CORNELL UNIV ITHACA NY DEPT OF THEORETICAL AND APPLIED MECHANICS

Personal Author(s):

• Wang, Z. J.

Report Date:

2005-08-23

Pagination or Media Count:

8.0

Abstract:

Here are some of the highlights in our three years work supported by this grant 1 New lessons from a dragonfly flight, namely, designing flapping flight at low Reynolds number need not follow the traditional rule, but instead, could make use of drag as well as lift. 2 Two new Navier-Stokes codes for efficiently simulating multiple wings and ground effects. 3 Experiments of dragonfly flight provided data to our computational models and study the dragonflys fore-hind wing interactions. 4 Experiments, computation, and theoretical analysis of passive flight of falling paper and plates taught us about models of fluid forces. 5 Comparison of 2D computations against 3D robotic fruit fly experiments allow us to assess the relevance of 2D computations as well as the role of 3D effects in insect hovering. 6 Theoretical analysis of fluid forces including the effect of both the leading and trailing edge vortex sheets, a much needed improvement over the classical theory. 7 Simulations of three-dimensional elastic flapping wings that are actuated by muscle forces, which now finally takes off.

Descriptors:

• *COMPUTATIONS
• *FLIGHT
• *AERODYNAMICS
• MATHEMATICAL MODELS
• SIMULATION
• PASSIVE SYSTEMS
• FLUID DYNAMICS
• NAVIER STOKES EQUATIONS
• REYNOLDS NUMBER
• WINGED INSECTS
• LIFT TO DRAG RATIO
• TRAILING EDGES
• HOVERING
• LOW RATE
• WINGS
• THREE DIMENSIONAL
• TRAILING VORTICES
• TWO DIMENSIONAL
• ROBOTICS

Subject Categories:

• Aerodynamics
• Biology
• Operations Research

Distribution Statement:

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE