Nanoindentation mechanical properties and structural biomimetic models of three species of insects wings

Abstract

Mimicking insect flights were used to design and develop new engineering materials. Although extensive research was done to study various aspects of flying insects. Because the detailed mechanics and underlying principles involved in insect flights remain largely unknown. A systematic study was carried on insect flights by using a combination of several advanced techniques to develop new models for the simulation and analysis of the wing membrane and veins of three types of insect wings, namely dragonfly (Pantala flavescens Fabricius), honeybee (Apis cerana cerana Fabricius) and fly (Sarcophaga carnaria Linnaeus). In order to gain insights into the flight mechanics of insects, reverse engineering methods were used to establish three-dimensional geometrical models of the membranous wings, so we can make a comparative analysis. Then nano-mechanical test of the three insect wing membranes was performed to provide experimental parameter values for mechanical models in terms of nano-hardness and elastic modulus. Finally, a computational model was established by using the finite element analysis (ANSYS) to analyze and compare the wings under a variety of simplified load regimes that are concentrated force, uniform line-load and a torque. This work opened up the possibility towards developing an engineering basis for the biomimetic design of thin solid films and 2D advanced engineering composite materials.

Local deformation and stiffness distribution in fly wings

“…The same holds for experiments using nanoindentation techniques on dried leading edge veins in dragonflies Pantala flavescens . The latter study reported stiffness results of 1–2 GPa (Tong et al, 2015). Indeed, a study on the ladybird beetle Coccinella septempunctata recently showed that the setal tips contain high amounts of resilin.…”

“…While Young's modulus describes the relationship between tensile stress and tensile strain within the material, the spring constant describes the ratio between the deflection and loading force, and flexural stiffness is a measure that combines material and shape properties. On average, Young's modulus of insect wings amounts to 5 GPa (Vincent and Wegst, 2004) but may greatly vary from tens to hundreds of Megapascal in flies and dragonflies (leading wing edge, Chen et al, 2013; Tong et al, 2015) and even in different parts of the wing (Haas et al, 2000a,b; Rajabi et al, 2016b). Spring stiffness covers measurements between ∼1 Nm −1 in butterflies (Mengesha et al, 2011) and ∼50 Nm −1 for the wing base of blowflies (Ganguli et al, 2010; Lehmann et al, 2011).…”

An experimental data-driven mass-spring model of flexible Calliphora wings

“…The average value over individuals of Young's modulus is 12.58 GPa with a standard deviation 3.03 GPa. This value is somewhat larger than the value known from previous direct measurements of the Young's modulus of wing cuticle samples, 5 GPa [29,55]. On the other hand, the joints' stiffness varies significantly among individuals because it depends on various factors such as the distribution of resilin, the shape of veins or the existence of vein spikes [36].…”

The roles of wrinkle structures in the veins of Asian Ladybird and bioinspiration

“…In analyzing the effects of the camber and stress stiffening of the membrane, the model assumes that the veins have an identical modulus (Ha et al, 2013). Wing models of insects have also been used as foundations to simulate the mechanical properties of wings (Tong et al, 2015).…”