Meeting Abstract

P3.156  Monday, Jan. 6 15:30  MEASURING TURBULENCE ON THE SPATIAL SCALES OF INSECT FLIGHT MCNEILLY, LE*; SRIDHAR, R; COMBES, SA; Bunker Hill Community College; Harvard University; Harvard University lukemc7@gmail.com

Experiments on insect flight are generally restricted to the confines of laboratories where there is no external flow (i.e. still air) or in very smooth flow produced by laminar wind tunnels. However the vast majority of insects reside in the outdoor environment, within the Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL) that extends to a few hundred meters above the Earth’s surface. The airflow within the ABL can be very unsteady and turbulent mainly due to the influence of terrain, various meteorological phenomena, Coriolis forces and convection from the surface. Obtaining an understanding of the flow structure in natural habitats of insects will elucidate the meteorological dynamics at small scales (or high frequencies) as well as strategic control mechanisms implemented by insects flying in turbulent winds. Here, we present a Turbulence Measurement Unit (TMU) which can be easily deployed outdoors and is capable of resolving wind velocity and direction at the spatial and temporal scale relevant for insect flight. The TMU consists of a hot wire anemometer coupled with an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) and temperature sensor which can align itself to the prevailing wind and take velocity measurements at rates >3kHz. Preliminary results indicate that while large scale turbulence dominate the velocity fluctuations occurring in wind, there exists considerable energy even at smaller scale i.e. higher frequencies that might adversely influence insect flight.