Mechanical & Materials Engineering, Department of
Document Type
Article
Date of this Version
8-2022
Citation
Published in Proceedings of the ASME 2022 Fluids Engineering Division Summer Meeting FEDSM2022 August 3-5, 2022, Toronto, Ontario, Canada FEDSM2022-87031
DOI: 10.1115/FEDSM2022-87031
Abstract
An insect wing consists of a thin membrane supported by a system of veins, and flow of blood through the system of veins is critical for maintaining healthy insect wings. Better understanding of the insect wing vein circulation requires to know how the efficiency of blood flow in an insect wing relates to the geometric shape of the vein. Our investigation of the wing vein network of a dragonfly Anax junius follows the idea of Murray’s law, which is established in the study of efficiency of the vein network and the geometric shape of the vein. Instead of using the classic Murray’s law for circular cross-sections, we derived a variation of the Murray’s law for vein cross-sections of equilateral triangles. Then, we evaluated the conformity of the studied wing vein network to Murray’s law by measuring the diameter of veins of the forewing of A. junius. Our data suggest that the vein network does not abide by the class Murray’s law and support that the shape of the vein is not cylindrical.
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Mechanics of Materials Commons, Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Commons, Other Engineering Science and Materials Commons, Other Mechanical Engineering Commons
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