Bacterial contamination of raw processed poultry continues to be of concern to consumers as well as regulatory and health officials. For many years wings were considered a low-value product; therefore, shelf life of wings was not a major concern. Due to changes in consumer attitudes and increases in the fast-food market, wings are now a valuable commodity. Because wings have a shorter shelf lif...

Joined-wing aircraft are being designed for ‘sensorcraft’ configuration. Joined wings lead to multiple load paths and constraints. The focus of this work is to understand the nonlinear structural as well as aeroelastic behavior of joined wings. The paper presents a formulation for the nonlinear aeroelastic analysis of joined wings. Results are presented for two joined wings configurations. Over...

Deformed wing virus (DWV) in western honey bees (Apis mellifera) often remains asymptomatic in workers and drones, and symptoms have never been described from queens. However, intense infections linked to parasitism by the mite Varroa destructor can cause worker wing deformity and death within 67 h of emergence. Ten workers (eight with deformed wings and two with normal wings) and three drones ...

Using three-dimensional computer simulations, we examine hovering aerodynamics of flexible planar wings oscillating at resonance. We model flexible wings as tilted elastic plates whose sinusoidal plunging motion is imposed at the plate root. Our simulations reveal that large-amplitude resonance oscillations of elastic wings drastically enhance aerodynamic lift and efficiency of low-Reynolds-num...

The smallest flying insects commonly possess wings with long bristles. Little quantitative information is available on the morphology of these bristles, and their functional importance remains a mystery. In this study, we (1) collected morphological data on the bristles of 23 species of Mymaridae by analyzing high-resolution photographs and (2) used the immersed boundary method to determine via...

Swifts are among the most aerodynamically refined gliding birds. However, the overlapping vanes and protruding shafts of their primary feathers make swift wings remarkably rough for their size. Wing roughness height is 1-2% of chord length on the upper surface--10,000 times rougher than sailplane wings. Sailplanes depend on extreme wing smoothness to increase the area of laminar flow on the win...

Insect wings do not contain intrinsic musculature to change shape, but rather bend and twist passively during flight. Some insect wings feature flexible joints along their veins that contain patches of resilin, a rubber-like protein. Bumblebee wings exhibit a central resilin joint (1m-cu) that has previously been shown to improve vertical force production during hovering flight. In this study, ...

We use fully-coupled three-dimensional computer simulations to examine aerodynamics of elastic wings oscillating at resonance. Wings are modeled as planar elastic plates plunging sinusoidally at a low Reynolds number. The wings are tilted from horizontal, thereby generating asymmetric flow patterns and non-zero net aerodynamic forces. Our simulations reveal that resonance oscillations of elasti...

Bionic micro-air vehicles (MAV) having the maneuverability of dragonflies would be capable of fast forward flight, hovering and even backward flight. In order to achieve desirable designs for high performing MAVs, it is essential to understand the aerodynamics and structures of the insect wings and more importantly, the interactions between the operating flows and flexible structural wings. Her...

A linear, aeroelastic analysis of a low aspect ratio swept back trapezoidal wing modeled as a cantilever plate is presented. An analytical and numerical formulation for both the aerodynamic forcing and structural response of the wing was developed. The analytical model uses a three dimensional time domain vortex lattice aerodynamic method. A Rayleigh-Ritz approach has been used to transfer equa...