International Journal of Fluid Mechanics Research

ISSN for PRINT: 1064-2277

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2001, Volume28

Issue 4

152 pages

Issue price - $250.00

A. V. Shekhovtsov
Institute of Hydromechanics of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine

M. Junge
Saarland University, Saarbroken, Germany

W. Nachtigall
Saarland University, Saarbroken, Germany

A two dimensional non-linear computation model of a bee wing operation, when fanning a hive, is constructed on the basis of the improved method of discrete vortices and the kinematic data, obtained by the high-speed filming. The cases of a single bee, of a bee on a landing platform, and of a separated chain of bees are considered. The instantaneous integral characteristics and the average dynamical characteristics of wing, the vortex patterns, the velocity fields, the equivelocity contours, the equipressure contours and the instantaneous streamlines are obtained. The stream functions, required for calculation of the instantaneous streamlines, both of the flow in the channel, induced by a vortex, and of the flow, induced by an isolated vortex chain, are obtained analytically. Numerical simulation shows that a circulating flow, catching air from the hive, is formed at any flapping half-plane. A comparative analysis of the obtained results gives grounds to conclude that the insect's wing operation in a fanning mode, similarly to the flight mode, is based on the inertial-vortical principle.

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