Earwig fan designing: Biomimetic and evolutionary biology applications
Earwig fan designing: Biomimetic and evolutionary biology applications
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.2005769117
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发表时间：
2020-07-28
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
You, Zhong
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Saito, Kazuya;Perez-de la Fuente, Ricardo;You, Zhong
在多种工程应用中需要将结构折叠成紧凑形状的技术。耳蝠（Dermaptera）以一种独特的、高度复杂的方式折叠它们的扇形后翅，使它们在所有昆虫中拥有最紧凑的翅膀。以前已经研究了翼的结构和材料组成、飞行中的加固机制和抗弯性能。然而，再现其复杂折痕图案所需的几何规则仍然不确定。在这里，我们展示了通过考虑折纸模型中的平面可折叠性来设计一个以earwig为灵感的风扇的方法，正如X射线微计算机断层扫描成像所告知的那样。如我们的专用设计软件所示，耳塞风扇可以定制成不同尺寸和配置的人工可展开结构，用于建筑，航空航天，机械工程和日常用品。此外，所提出的方法能够重建一个古老的earwig relative，2.8亿年前的Protellytron permianum的翅膀折叠机制。这使我们能够提出进化模式，解释现存的耳假发如何获得他们的翅膀折叠机制，并项目假设，灭绝的过渡形式。我们的研究结果可以作为仿生研究的基本设计准则，以利用出色的工程特性的earwig翅膀，并演示了几何设计方法可以揭示形态功能的进化约束和预测合理的生物差异在深时间。
Technologies to fold structures into compact shapes are required in multiple engineering applications. Earwigs (Dermaptera) fold their fanlike hind wings in a unique, highly sophisticated manner, granting them the most compact wing storage among all insects. The structural and material composition, in-flight reinforcement mechanisms, and bistable property of earwig wings have been previously studied. However, the geometrical rules required to reproduce their complex crease patterns have remained uncertain. Here we show the method to design an earwig-inspired fan by considering the flat foldability in the origami model, as informed by X-ray microcomputed tomography imaging. As our dedicated designing software shows, the earwig fan can be customized into artificial deployable structures of different sizes and configura-tions for use in architecture, aerospace, mechanical engineering, and daily use items. Moreover, the proposed method is able to reconstruct the wing-folding mechanism of an ancient earwig rel-ative, the 280-million-year-old Protelytron permianum. This allows us to propose evolutionary patterns that explain how extant ear-wigs acquired their wing-folding mechanism and to project hypo-thetical, extinct transitional forms. Our findings can be used as the basic design guidelines in biomimetic research for harnessing the excellent engineering properties of earwig wings, and demon-strate how a geometrical designing method can reveal morpho-functional evolutionary constraints and predict plausible biological disparity in deep time.