Wing kinematics measurement and aerodynamics of hovering droneflies

Abstract

The time courses of wing and body kinematics of three freely hovering droneflies (Eristalis tenax) were measured using 3D high-speed video, and the morphological parameters of the wings and body of the insects were also measured. The measured wing kinematics was used in a Navier-Stokes solver to compute the aerodynamic forces and moments acting on the insects. The time courses of the geometrical angle of attack and the deviation angle of the wing are considerably different from that of fruit flies recently measured using the same approach. The angle of attack is approximately constant in the mid portions of a half-stroke (a downstroke or upstroke) and varies rapidly during the stroke reversal. The deviation angle is relatively small and is higher at the beginning and the end of a half-stroke and lower at the middle of the half-stroke, giving a shallow U-shaped wing-tip trajectory. For all three insects considered, the computed vertical force is approximately equal to the insect weight (the difference is less than 6% of the weight) and the computed horizontal force and pitching moment about the center of mass of the insect are approximately zero. The computed results satisfying the equilibrium flight conditions, especially the moment balance condition, validate the computation model. The lift principle is mainly used to produce the weight-supporting vertical force, unlike the fruit flies who use both lift and drag principles to generate the vertical force; the vertical force is mainly due to the delayed stall mechanism. The magnitude of the inertia power is larger than that of the aerodynamic power, and the largest possible effect of elastic storage amounts to a reduction of flight power by around 40%, much larger than in the case of the fruit fly.