Host: The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers
Name : [in Japanese]
Date : May 10, 2017 - May 13, 2017
We measured the flight force of fruit flies under the steady airflow. To measure the flight force, we used a MEMS triaxial force sensor. A fruit fly was glued to a sensor with UV curable resin. A wind tunnel was made to apply the steady airflow. The wind tunnel consisted of a flow straightening section, a contract section, a test section and fans. The size of the test section where the sensor was attached to was 50 mm × 50 mm × 150 mm. We measured the flight force at the velocity of airflow 0 m/s, 1.6 m/s and 2.2 m/s. Simultaneously, we took high-speed videos of the flapping of wings. The result suggested that the faster the airflow velocity was, the lower the force of flying forward was. The trajectory of wings also changed in accordance with the velocity of the airflow.
