What is it about?
The paper is about a new discovery from wings of a flying beetle that can shed light on wing shape changes in flight: an unusual bell-shaped structure, which is compliant in one direction and almost 10 times stiffer in the opposite direction. The structure is an effective one-way hinge that works using a single material with no extra mass. Using biomimetic approaches, we used the hinge in a modular design, an adaptive airless tire, and a metamaterial to show its potential applications.
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Photo by Jon Butterworth on Unsplash
Why is it important?
This multidisciplinary study not only advances our understanding of the biomechanics of complicated insect wings but also informs the design of easily tunable engineering hinges.
Perspectives
Writing this article was a great pleasure as we had the chance to collaborate with Prof Robin J Wootton, one of the pioneers of wing biomechanics.
Hamed Rajabi
London South Bank University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: An insect-inspired asymmetric hinge in a double-layer membrane, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, November 2022, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2211861119.
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