Wing Morphology and Inertial Properties of Bumblebees

Abstract

It is shown that the wings of bumblebees during flapping undergo pitching (feathering angle) rotation that can be characterized as a fluid-structure interaction problem. Measurements of shape, size and inertial properties of the wings of bumblebees Bombus ignitus are described that provide the necessary input data for numerical modelling. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solver is combined with a dynamical model that describes the time evolution of the feathering angle. An example result of the numerical simulation is shown.