The roles of wrinkle structures in the veins of Asian Ladybird and bioinspiration

Abstract

The deployable hind wings of the Asian ladybird beetle (Harmonia axyridis) play important roles in their flight. Wrinkle structures of veins are found on the bending zones of the hind wings of H. axyridis. This paper investigates the effect of the wrinkle structures of the veins of the hind wing on its deformation. Based on the nanomechanical properties of the veins, morphology of the hind wing, surface structures of veins and microstructures of the cross sections, including the veins and wing membranes, we establish four three-dimensional coupling models for hind wings with/without wrinkles with different and uniform reduced modulus. Relative to the bending and twisting model shapes, Model I, which includes the wrinkle structure and different reduced-modulus veins, has much more flexibility of passive deformation to control wing deformations. The results show that both the wrinkle structures in the bending zone and varying reduced modulus of the veins contribute to the flight performance of bending and twisting deformations of the hind wings, which have important implications for the bionic design of the biomimetic deployable wing of micro air vehicles (MAVs).