During their final transformation, insects emerge from the pupal case and deploy their wings within minutes. The wings deploy from a compact origami structure, to form a planar and rigid blade that allows the insect to fly. Deployment is powered by a rapid increase in internal pressure, and by the subsequent flow of hemolymph into the deployable wing structure. Using a combination of imaging techniques, we characterize the internal and external structure of the wing in Drosophila melanogaster, the unfolding kinematics at the organ scale, and the hemolymph flow during deployment. We find that, beyond the mere unfolding of the macroscopic folds, wing deployment also involves wing expansion, with the stretching of epithelial cells and the unwrinkling of the cuticle enveloping the wing. A quantitative computational model, incorporating mechanical measurements of the viscoelastic properties and microstructure of the wing, predicts the existence of an operating point for deployment and captures the dynamics of the process. This model shows that insects exploit material and geometric nonlinearities to achieve rapid and efficient reconfiguration of soft deployable structures.

在它们的最后一次转化过程中，昆虫从蛹壳中出现并在几分钟内展开翅膀。翅膀从紧凑的折纸结构中展开，形成一个平面和刚性的叶片，使昆虫能够飞行。展开的动力来自内部压力的快速增加，以及随后的血淋巴液流入可展开的机翼结构。使用成像技术的组合，我们表征了黑腹果蝇翅膀的内部和外部结构、器官尺度上展开的运动学以及部署过程中的血淋巴血流。我们发现，除了单纯的宏观褶皱展开之外，机翼展开还涉及机翼扩张，上皮细胞的拉伸和包裹机翼的角质层的起皱。一个定量计算模型，结合了机翼粘弹性和微观结构的机械测量，预测了部署工作点的存在，并捕捉了过程的动力学。该模型表明，昆虫利用材料和几何非线性来实现软可部署结构的快速高效重新配置。