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The Journal of Experimental Biology 205, 1507-1518 (2002)
© 2002 The Company of Biologists Limited

A three-dimensional computational study of the aerodynamic mechanisms of insect flight

Ravi Ramamurti^* and William C. Sandberg

Laboratory for Computational Physics and Fluid Dynamics, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375, USA

^* e-mail: ravi{at}lcp.nrl.navy.mil

Accepted 4 March 2002

A finite element flow solver was employed to compute unsteady flow past a three-dimensional Drosophila wing undergoing flapping motion. The computed thrust and drag forces agreed well with results from a previous experimental study. A grid-refinement study was performed to validate the computational results, and a grid-independent solution was achieved. The effect of phasing between the translational and rotational motions was studied by varying the rotational motion prior to the stroke reversal. It was observed that, when the wing rotation is advanced with respect to the stroke reversal, the peak in the thrust forces is higher than when the wing rotation is in phase with the stroke reversal and that the peak thrust is reduced further when the wing rotation is delayed. As suggested by previous authors, we observe that the rotational mechanism is important and that the combined translational and rotational mechanisms are necessary to describe accurately the force time histories and unsteady aerodynamics of flapping wings.

Key words: unsteady mechanism, incompressible fluid, flapping foil, unstructured mesh, insect, flight, Drosophila

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