The beam modelling of the hawkmoth wing structure

Abstract

Hawkmoth wings consist of veins and membrane elements that undergo large deformations while moving through the air. The intention of this paper is to create an Euler-Bernoulli beam that can model the complex structure of a hawkmoth forewing. The beam undergoes bending and torsion, and its modal analysis and deformation data are validated against those of the wing structure created based on the finite-element method and a biological wing. A multibody dynamics approach is employed to model the deformation of the beam wing when it oscillates at the frequency of an actual hawkmoth.