The design of a low-speed wind tunnel for studying the flow field of insects' flight

Hong-yan Zhao; Peng-fei Zhang; Yun Ma; Jian-guo Ning

doi:10.1117/12.2080734

4 March 2015 The design of a low-speed wind tunnel for studying the flow field of insects' flight

Hong-yan Zhao, Peng-fei Zhang, Yun Ma, Jian-guo Ning

Proceedings Volume 9302, International Conference on Experimental Mechanics 2014; 93022Z (2015) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2080734
Event: International Conference on Experimental Mechanics 2014, 2014, Singapore, Singapore

Abstract

In this paper, low-speed smoke wind tunnel has been designed and fabricated for the insects’ flow field visualization. The test section and the contraction section of the tunnel are optimized and determined as to size by the method of computational fluid dynamics. And fairing devices are equipped in different sections to reduce the turbulence intensity and increase the flow uniformity in the experimental sections. For the smoke visualization of small insects, the smokeemitting equipment has been specially designed and carefully debugged. Composed of wind tunnel, light source and high-speed camera, experimental platform for visualization and filming of insect flight flow field has been established. Besides, the feasible and stable method for insect fixing has been designed. With the smoke wind tunnel, flow filed visualization experiment for the honeybee’s flapping was conducted and smoke flow filed in the experiment was recorded and analyzed. Near-filed and far-filed vortex structure when the honeybee fly can be recorded clearly. The experimental results indicate that the experimental platform is appropriate for flow filed study on insects flapping.

Citation Download Citation

Hong-yan Zhao, Peng-fei Zhang, Yun Ma, and Jian-guo Ning "The design of a low-speed wind tunnel for studying the flow field of insects' flight", Proc. SPIE 9302, International Conference on Experimental Mechanics 2014, 93022Z (4 March 2015); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2080734

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