The bombardier beetle and its use of a pressure relief valve system to deliver a periodic pulsed spray
Thu, 08/11/2007 - 15:03 | 
Thomas Hesselberg
| Title | The bombardier beetle and its use of a pressure relief valve system to deliver a periodic pulsed spray |
| Publication Type | Journal Article |
| Other Author Affiliations | 2007 |
| Authors | Beheshti, N.; Mcintosh, A. C. |
| Journal | Bioinspiration & Biomimetics |
| Place Published | 2 |
| Edition | 57-64 |
| Type of Article | computational |
| Issue | eng |
| Pagination | In this paper the combustion chamber of the bombardier beetle is considered and recentfindings are presented which demonstrate that certain parts of the anatomy are in fact inlet andoutlet valves. In particular, the authors show that the intake and exhaust valve mechanisminvolves a repeated (pulsating) steam explosion, the principle of which was up till now unclear.New research here has now shown the characteristics of the ejections and the role of importantvalves. In this paper numerical simulations of the two-phase flow ejection are presented whichdemonstrate that the principle of cyclic water injection followed by water and steamdecompression explosions is the fundamental mechanism used to create the repeated ejections. |