Abstract
To ensure the stability of flight, the butterfly needs to flap its wings and simultaneously move its main body to achieve all kinds of flying motion, such as taking off, hovering, or reverse flight. The high-speed camera is used to record the swing of the abdomen, the movement of the wings, and the pitch angle of the body for butterflies during their free flight; the comprehensive biokinetic observations show that the butterfly’s wings and body are coupled in various flight states. The swing of the abdomen and the flap of the fore wing affect the pitch motion significantly. For theoretical analysis of the butterfly flight, a three-dimensional multi-rigid butterfly model based on real butterfly dimension is established, and the aerodynamic of the butterfly flight is simulated and analyzed via computational fluid dynamics methods to obtain an optimal kinematic model of butterfly forward flight. Moreover, the formation and development of three-dimensional vortex structures in the forward flight are also presented. The detailed structures of vortices and their dynamic behavior show that the wing’s flap and the abdominal swing play a key role in reorienting and correcting the “clap and peel” mechanism, and the force generation mechanisms are evaluated. The research indicates that longitudinal flight performance is mainly related to the kinematic parameters of the wing and body, and it can lead to the development of butterfly-inspired flapping wing air vehicles.
Highlights
The bionic study of insect flight has lasted for a long time, and common characteristics of insect flight have been mentioned in many studies, such as elastic and thin wings and high flapping frequency (10–500 Hz) [1]
Our aim in this paper is to present the clearest forward flight and reveal the special flying skills of the butterfly (Chilasa clytia)
The analyzed kinematics results of the butterfly are shown in Table 4, including the total time of forward flight, the average stroke amplitude ( Ā f ), the average flapping frequency ( f), the average pitch angle, the maximum pitch angle
Summary
The bionic study of insect flight has lasted for a long time, and common characteristics of insect flight have been mentioned in many studies, such as elastic and thin wings and high flapping frequency (10–500 Hz) [1]. Common insects, such as bees, dragonflies, and flies, all conform to these characteristics, while butterflies’ wing-flapping frequency is approximately 10 Hz, which is much lower than many other insects [2]. Direction, and attitude of flight, some insects change the movement mode of wings, while others control the flight by changing the relative motion of various parts of themselves
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