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Bio-Inspired Aquatic Propulsion Mechanism Using Viscoelastic Fin Containing Fiber Composite Shear Thickening Fluid

Many propulsion mechanisms utilizing elastic fins inspired by the caudal fins of aquatic animals have been developed. However, these elastic fins possess a characteristic whereby the rigidity required to achieve propulsion force and speed increases as the oscillation velocity increases. Therefore, b...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Kobayashi, Shunichi, Sugiyama, Kousuke
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10526487/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37754156
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biomimetics8050405
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author Kobayashi, Shunichi
Sugiyama, Kousuke
author_facet Kobayashi, Shunichi
Sugiyama, Kousuke
author_sort Kobayashi, Shunichi
collection PubMed
description Many propulsion mechanisms utilizing elastic fins inspired by the caudal fins of aquatic animals have been developed. However, these elastic fins possess a characteristic whereby the rigidity required to achieve propulsion force and speed increases as the oscillation velocity increases. Therefore, by adding an actuator including a variable stiffness mechanism to the fin it is possible to maintain the optimal stiffness at all times. However, if the aforementioned characteristics allowing the fin itself to change stiffness are present, the need for a variable stiffness mechanism is eliminated, leading to possibilities such as the simplification of the mechanism, improvements in fault tolerance, and enhancements in fin efficiency. The authors developed a fiber composite viscoelastic fin by adding fibers to a shear thickening fluid (STF) and examined the speed dependency of the fin’s rigidity. In this work, we examined the structure and speed dependency of the fin’s rigidity, as well as the propulsion characteristics in still water and in uniform flow. As a result, the fiber-containing fin containing the STF oobleck (an aqueous suspension of potato starch) demonstrated higher propulsion in still water and higher self-propelled equivalent speed in uniform water flow than elastic fins.
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spelling pubmed-105264872023-09-28 Bio-Inspired Aquatic Propulsion Mechanism Using Viscoelastic Fin Containing Fiber Composite Shear Thickening Fluid Kobayashi, Shunichi Sugiyama, Kousuke Biomimetics (Basel) Article Many propulsion mechanisms utilizing elastic fins inspired by the caudal fins of aquatic animals have been developed. However, these elastic fins possess a characteristic whereby the rigidity required to achieve propulsion force and speed increases as the oscillation velocity increases. Therefore, by adding an actuator including a variable stiffness mechanism to the fin it is possible to maintain the optimal stiffness at all times. However, if the aforementioned characteristics allowing the fin itself to change stiffness are present, the need for a variable stiffness mechanism is eliminated, leading to possibilities such as the simplification of the mechanism, improvements in fault tolerance, and enhancements in fin efficiency. The authors developed a fiber composite viscoelastic fin by adding fibers to a shear thickening fluid (STF) and examined the speed dependency of the fin’s rigidity. In this work, we examined the structure and speed dependency of the fin’s rigidity, as well as the propulsion characteristics in still water and in uniform flow. As a result, the fiber-containing fin containing the STF oobleck (an aqueous suspension of potato starch) demonstrated higher propulsion in still water and higher self-propelled equivalent speed in uniform water flow than elastic fins. MDPI 2023-09-01 /pmc/articles/PMC10526487/ /pubmed/37754156 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biomimetics8050405 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Kobayashi, Shunichi
Sugiyama, Kousuke
Bio-Inspired Aquatic Propulsion Mechanism Using Viscoelastic Fin Containing Fiber Composite Shear Thickening Fluid
title Bio-Inspired Aquatic Propulsion Mechanism Using Viscoelastic Fin Containing Fiber Composite Shear Thickening Fluid
title_full Bio-Inspired Aquatic Propulsion Mechanism Using Viscoelastic Fin Containing Fiber Composite Shear Thickening Fluid
title_fullStr Bio-Inspired Aquatic Propulsion Mechanism Using Viscoelastic Fin Containing Fiber Composite Shear Thickening Fluid
title_full_unstemmed Bio-Inspired Aquatic Propulsion Mechanism Using Viscoelastic Fin Containing Fiber Composite Shear Thickening Fluid
title_short Bio-Inspired Aquatic Propulsion Mechanism Using Viscoelastic Fin Containing Fiber Composite Shear Thickening Fluid
title_sort bio-inspired aquatic propulsion mechanism using viscoelastic fin containing fiber composite shear thickening fluid
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10526487/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37754156
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biomimetics8050405
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