Abstract
This study examined the morphological characteristics and mechanical properties of the wings of Tirumala limniace. The wings of this butterfly, including the forewings and hindwings, are composed mainly of a flexible wing membrane and supporting wing veins. Scanning electron microscopy was employed to observe specific positions of the wing membrane and veins and reveal the morphological characteristics. Tensile experiments were conducted to evaluate the mechanical properties of the wings and proved that the multifiber layer structures have a significantly fixed orientation of fiber alignment. A butterfly wing model reconstructed in reverse based on the finite element method was used to analyze the static characteristics of the wing structure in detail. Evaluation of stress and strain after applying uniform loading, perpendicular loading, and torsion revealed that minor wing deformation occurred and was concentrated near the main wing vein, which verifies the steadiness of the butterfly wing structure. Additionally, the flapping of butterfly wings was simulated using computational fluid dynamics to study the flow field near the butterfly wings and the distribution of pressure gradient on the wings. The results confirmed the effect of wing veins on maintaining the flight performance.
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Abbreviations
- A :
-
Original area of the cross-section
- CFD:
-
Computational fluid dynamics
- E :
-
Elastic modulus of the sample
- FEM:
-
Finite element modeling
- F :
-
Tensile force acting on the test sample
- F 0 :
-
Minimum lift in air
- F 1 :
-
Force applied to the wing tip
- h 0 :
-
Initial distance between the upper and lower clamps before the tensile test
- h i :
-
Actual length between the upper and lower fixtures at each stage of the experiment
- LEV:
-
Leading edge vortices
- L 1 :
-
Short diameter of the wing vein cross-section
- L 2 :
-
Long diameter of the wing vein cross-section
- l 0 :
-
Length of the butterfly wing in the span direction
- l 1 :
-
Length of the butterfly wing in the chord direction
- M :
-
Bending moment
- m 0 :
-
Mass of the insect
- q :
-
Uniform load
- S :
-
Area of a single wing
- SEM:
-
Scanning electron microscopy
- T :
-
Torque applied to the model
- ε i :
-
Strain of the sample
- σ :
-
Stress of the sample
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Acknowledgements
All authors contributed to the study conception and design. The experimental setup was designed by AJ and HS. The material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by AJ, HS, XL, and YM. The first draft of the manuscript was written by HS. AJ, QL, and XL: contributed to data interpretation and critically revised the manuscript. All authors provided final approval for publication and agree to be held accountable for the work performed therein.
Funding
This work was supported by the National Natural Science of Foundation of China [grant numbers 51875281 and 51861135306].
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This study was carried out in accordance with the Guide for Laboratory Animal Management Ordinance of China. The experimental procedures were approved by the Jiangsu Association for Animal Science (Jiangsu, China).
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Shen, H., Ji, A., Li, Q. et al. Tensile mechanical properties and finite element simulation of the wings of the butterfly Tirumala limniace. J Comp Physiol A 209, 239–251 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-022-01556-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-022-01556-z