Abstract
For flying insects, stability is essential to maintain the orientation and direction of motion in flight. Flight instability is caused by a variety of factors, such as intended abrupt flight manoeuvres and unwanted environmental disturbances. Although wings play a key role in insect flight stability, little is known about their oscillatory behaviour. Here we present the first systematic study of insect wing damping. We show that different wing regions have almost identical damping properties. The mean damping ratio of fresh wings is noticeably higher than that previously thought. Flight muscles and hemolymph have almost no ‘direct’ influence on the wing damping. In contrast, the involvement of the wing hinge can significantly increase damping. We also show that although desiccation reduces the wing damping ratio, rehydration leads to full recovery of damping properties after desiccation. Hence, we expect hemolymph to influence the wing damping indirectly, by continuously hydrating the wing system.
Highlights
For flying insects, stability is essential to maintain the orientation and direction of motion in flight
The amplitude of the oscillations decayed over time until the wings returned to rest at equilibrium (Fig. 2k). This oscillatory behaviour, which was the characteristic of all specimens, is known as underdamped oscillation
We focus on the comparison of the damping ratios of different wing regions
Summary
Stability is essential to maintain the orientation and direction of motion in flight. Flight muscles and hemolymph have almost no ‘direct’ influence on the wing damping. 1234567890():,; Flying animals have evolved strategies to adjust many aspects of their flight performance, such as the flight speed, altitude, manoeuvrability, etc. These strategies are very diverse, they generally fall into two categories: (i) those that control wing motion and (ii) those that modulate wing shape[1,2,3,4]. In contrast to birds and bats, the aerodynamic force generation in flying insects mainly relies on passive changes of the wing shape, and perhaps some minor shape controls by the thoracic muscles[8,9,10,11,12]. The interactions between the two regions in flight yield a balance between stiffness and flexibility, thereby allowing beneficial wing deformations while preventing excessive bending[11]
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