Data from: Effects of the insect body size on the wing leading-edge vortex

Stable attachment of a leading-edge vortex (LEV) plays a key role in generating the high lift on insect wings. The insect's body-size can affect the LEV structure broadly in two ways. First, an overall change in the size changes the Reynolds number, which is known to have an influence on the LEV structure. Second, it may affect the Coriolis acceleration acting across the wing, depending on the wing-offset from the axis of rotation. To investigate this, the effects of Reynolds number and the wing-offset are independently studied for a rotating wing. The three-dimensional LEV structure is mapped using a scanning PIV technique. The rapid acquisition of images and their correlation are carefully validated. The results presented in this paper show that the LEV structure changes mainly with the Reynolds number. However, it is found to be only minimally affected by changing the central body radius over a wide range of body sizes.

前缘涡（leading-edge vortex, LEV）的稳定附着对昆虫翼高升力的生成起着关键作用。昆虫体型可大体通过两种方式影响前缘涡结构：其一，体型的整体变化会改变雷诺数（Reynolds number），而雷诺数已知会对前缘涡结构产生影响；其二，根据翼部相对于旋转轴的偏移量差异，其可能会影响作用于翼面的科里奥利加速度（Coriolis acceleration）。为探究这一问题，本研究针对旋转翼模型独立开展了雷诺数与翼部偏移量的影响效应研究。研究采用扫描PIV技术对三维前缘涡结构进行测绘，图像的快速采集流程及其相关性分析均经过了严格的验证。本文呈现的研究结果表明，前缘涡结构主要随雷诺数变化而改变；然而，在较宽的体型区间内，改变中心体半径仅会对其产生极小的影响。