Meeting Abstract
Emerging rapid prototyping techniques are making it possible to explore how the body of a fish interacts with the surrounding fluid flow; revealing new insight into their locomotor efficiency and sensory biology. In live fishes, experimentally evaluating the contributions of individual parameters such as body stiffness, muscle activation timing, and lateral line sensitivity are exceedingly challenging. Simple physical models such as hydrofoils allow for isolation of individual parameters, however, fail to capture the complexity of biological systems. Motivated by this disparity, we 3D scanned a rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) in order to fabricate biologically accurate physical models. We 3D printed trout heads outfitted with pressure transducers at the locations of the lateral line canal neuromast pores. By altering yaw and pitch of the fish heads, we found that the phylogenetically conserved canal lateral line arrangement along the head can play a distinct role in directional flow sensing. In another project, we molded whole fish models with 3D printed heads and a contrived back bone inside a flexible plastisol body. Using a force-measuring external actuator to manipulate the model, we compared implemented kinematics to those of live fish with high speed video. This approach indicates the importance of body stiffness and actuation parameters in optimizing swimming performance and efficiency. Our work highlights the value of using rapid prototyping techniques to gain novel insight into complex biological systems.
