| The damselfly belongs to the same insect family as the dragonfly that inspired the development of Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs). Understanding the morphological, mechanical and structural properties of wings, veins and membranes of fly would provide guidelines to develop efficient MAVs. Lack of test methodologies inhibited the progress. The objective of this research was to develop the above methodologies and then measure the properties of veins, membranes and wings of damselflies. The research yielded four test methodologies: fluorescence spectroscopic analysis to map the morphology of vein; axial nanoindentation test to measure indentation properties; micro tension test to measure tensile properties of microscopic components; and a unique vibration test of wings to measure natural frequency, stiffness and air damping factor. Axial indentation test contrasts the transverse indentation used in the past, whose results were corrupted by surface roughness and flexibility of veins. Veins were found to be made of two layered, elliptical tubular members. The thickness of inner and outer layers was about 8 and 5 microm, respectively and corresponding indentation moduli were 8.42 and 16.00 GPa. The modulus of veins agreed with those of human bones. The tensile modulus and strength of veins ranged from 14 to 17 GPa and 232 to 285 MPa, respectively. The damselfly wing was found to vibrate under bending and torsional deformations, the natural frequency (in air) ranged from 130 to 178 Hz, the wing stiffness ranged from 0.18 to 0.30 N/m with the air damping ratio from 0.67 to 0.79. Pathway to develop a material of matching properties is also presented. |
