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Aquatic locomotion

About: Aquatic locomotion is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 69 publications have been published within this topic receiving 3796 citations. The topic is also known as: swim & active swimming.


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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Even within the potential constraints of a body plan in which the body is encased by a shell, turtles exhibit diverse locomotor capacities that have enabled diversification into a wide range of aquatic habitats.
Abstract: Though ultimately descended from terrestrial amniotes, turtles have deep roots as an aquatic lineage and are quite diverse in the extent of their aquatic specializations. Many taxa can be viewed as "on the fence" between aquatic and terrestrial realms, whereas others have independently hyperspecialized and moved "all in" to aquatic habitats. Such differences in specialization are reflected strongly in the locomotor system. We have conducted several studies to evaluate the performance consequences of such variation in design, as well as the mechanisms through which specialization for aquatic locomotion is facilitated in turtles. One path to aquatic hyperspecialization has involved the evolutionary transformation of the forelimbs from rowing, tubular limbs with distal paddles into flapping, flattened flippers, as in sea turtles. Prior to the advent of any hydrodynamic advantages, the evolution of such flippers may have been enabled by a reduction in twisting loads on proximal limb bones that accompanied swimming in rowing ancestors, facilitating a shift from tubular to flattened limbs. Moreover, the control of flapping movements appears related primarily to shifts in the activity of a single forelimb muscle, the deltoid. Despite some performance advantages, flapping may entail a locomotor cost in terms of decreased locomotor stability. However, other morphological specializations among rowing species may enhance swimming stability. For example, among highly aquatic pleurodiran turtles, fusion of the pelvis to the shell appears to dramatically reduce motions of the pelvis compared to freshwater cryptodiran species. This could contribute to advantageous increases in aquatic stability among predominantly aquatic pleurodires. Thus, even within the potential constraints of a body plan in which the body is encased by a shell, turtles exhibit diverse locomotor capacities that have enabled diversification into a wide range of aquatic habitats.

21 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
10 Sep 2019-Fluids
TL;DR: In this article, the authors used the immersed boundary method to solve the fully coupled fluid-structure interaction problem of an idealized flexible jellyfish bell with poroelastic tentacles/oral arms in a viscous, incompressible fluid.
Abstract: Jellyfish are majestic, energy-efficient, and one of the oldest species that inhabit the oceans. It is perhaps the second item, their efficiency, that has captivated scientists for decades into investigating their locomotive behavior. Yet, no one has specifically explored the role that their tentacles and oral arms may have on their potential swimming performance. We perform comparative in silico experiments to study how tentacle/oral arm number, length, placement, and density affect forward swimming speeds, cost of transport, and fluid mixing. An open source implementation of the immersed boundary method was used (IB2d) to solve the fully coupled fluid–structure interaction problem of an idealized flexible jellyfish bell with poroelastic tentacles/oral arms in a viscous, incompressible fluid. Overall tentacles/oral arms inhibit forward swimming speeds, by appearing to suppress vortex formation. Nonlinear relationships between length and fluid scale (Reynolds Number) as well as tentacle/oral arm number, density, and placement are observed, illustrating that small changes in morphology could result in significant decreases in swimming speeds, in some cases by upwards of 80–90% between cases with or without tentacles/oral arms.

20 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a comparative study of 44 diverse species quantifying the kinematics and morphology of caudal fin-swimming fishes was conducted. And the results reveal that most species share similar oscillation amplitude during steady locomotion that can be modeled using a second-degree order polynomial.
Abstract: Fishes exhibit an astounding diversity of locomotor behaviors from classic swimming with their body and fins to jumping, flying, walking, and burrowing. Fishes that use their body and caudal fin (BCF) during undulatory swimming have been traditionally divided into modes based on the length of the propulsive body wave and the ratio of head:tail oscillation amplitude: anguilliform, subcarangiform, carangiform, and thunniform. This classification was first proposed based on key morphological traits, such as body stiffness and elongation, to group fishes based on their expected swimming mechanics. Here, we present a comparative study of 44 diverse species quantifying the kinematics and morphology of BCF-swimming fishes. Our results reveal that most species we studied share similar oscillation amplitude during steady locomotion that can be modeled using a second-degree order polynomial. The length of the propulsive body wave was shorter for species classified as anguilliform and longer for those classified as thunniform, although substantial variability existed both within and among species. Moreover, there was no decrease in head:tail amplitude from the anguilliform to thunniform mode of locomotion as we expected from the traditional classification. While the expected swimming modes correlated with morphological traits, they did not accurately represent the kinematics of BCF locomotion. These results indicate that even fish species differing as substantially in morphology as tuna and eel exhibit statistically similar two-dimensional midline kinematics and point toward unifying locomotor hydrodynamic mechanisms that can serve as the basis for understanding aquatic locomotion and controlling biomimetic aquatic robots.

19 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A review of the recent work on unsteady aquatic locomotion with emphasis on numerical simulations shows that the active control and the erection of the anal/dorsal fins might be related to retaining the stability of the sunfish against roll and pitch during the C-start.
Abstract: motion to maximize the distance traveled from rest are similar to the experimentally observed C-start maneuvers. Furthermore, another set of simulations, which are validated against measurements of flow in experiments with live fish, investigate the role of fins during the C-start. The simulations showed that most of the force is generated by the body of the fish (not by fins) during the first stage of the C-start when the fish bends itself into the C-shape. However, in the second stage, when it rapidly bends out of the C-shape, more than 70% of the instantaneous hydrodynamic force is produced by the tail. The effect of dorsal and anal fins was less than 5% of the instantaneous force in both stages, except for a short period of time (2 ms) just before the second stage. Therefore, the active control and the erection of the anal/ dorsal fins might be related to retaining the stability of the sunfish against roll and pitch during the C-start. At the end, the needed future developments in the computational front and their possible applications on investigating stability during unsteady locomotion are discussed.

19 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Findings show that inter-appendage phase lag can drastically alter both metachronal swimming speed and the large-scale wake structure.
Abstract: Metachronal paddling is a common method of drag-based aquatic propulsion, in which a series of swimming appendages are oscillated, with the motion of each appendage phase-shifted relative to the neighboring appendages. Ecologically and economically important Euphausiid species such as Antarctic krill (E. superba) swim constantly in the pelagic zone by stroking their paddling appendages (pleopods), with locomotion accounting for the bulk of their metabolic expenditure. They tailor their metachronal swimming gaits for behavioral and energetic needs by changing pleopod kinematics. The functional importance of inter-pleopod phase lag (ϕ) to metachronal swimming performance and wake structure is unknown. To examine this relation, we developed a geometrically and dynamically scaled robot ('krillbot') capable of self-propulsion. Krillbot pleopods were prescribed to mimic published kinematics of fast-forward swimming (FFW) and hovering (HOV) gaits of E. superba, and the Reynolds number and Strouhal number of the krillbot matched well with those calculated for freely-swimming E. superba. In addition to examining published kinematics with uneven ϕ between pleopod pairs, we modified E. superba kinematics to uniformly vary ϕ from 0% to 50% of the cycle. Swimming speed and thrust were largest for FFW with ϕ between 15%-25%, coincident with ϕ range observed in FFW gait of E. superba. In contrast to synchronous rowing (ϕ=0%) where distances between hinged joints of adjacent pleopods were nearly constant throughout the cycle, metachronal rowing (ϕ>0%) brought adjacent pleopods closer together and moved them farther apart. This factor minimized body position fluctuation and augmented metachronal swimming speed. Though swimming speed was lowest for HOV, a ventrally angled downward jet was generated that can assist with weight support during feeding. In summary, our findings show that inter-appendage phase lag can drastically alter both metachronal swimming speed and the large-scale wake structure.

17 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
20217
20201
20194
20183
20173
20166