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Instrumenting Polyodon spathula (Paddlefish) Rostra in Flowing Water with Strain Gages and Accelerometers

The prominent rostrum of the North American Paddlefish, supported by a lattice-like endoskeleton, is highly durable, making it an important candidate for bio-inspiration studies. Energy dissipation and load-bearing capacity of the structure from extreme physical force has been demonstrated superior...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Thurmer, Clayton R., Patel, Reena R., Riveros, Guilermo A., Alexander, Quincy G., Ray, Jason D., Netchaev, Anton, Brown, Richard D., Leathers, Emily G., Klein, Jordan D., Hoover, Jan Jeffrey
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7236600/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32290516
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/bios10040037
Descripción
Sumario:The prominent rostrum of the North American Paddlefish, supported by a lattice-like endoskeleton, is highly durable, making it an important candidate for bio-inspiration studies. Energy dissipation and load-bearing capacity of the structure from extreme physical force has been demonstrated superior to that of man-made systems, but response to continuous hydraulic forces is unknown and requires special instrumentation for in vivo testing on a live fish. A single supply strain gage amplifier circuit has been combined with a digital three-axis accelerometer, implemented in a printed circuit board (PCB), and integrated with the commercial-off-the-shelf Adafruit Feather M0 datalogger with a microSD card. The device is battery powered and enclosed in silicon before attachment around the rostrum with a silicon strap "watch band." As proof-of-concept, we tested the instrumentation on an amputated Paddlefish rostrum in a water-filled swim tunnel and successfully obtained interpretable data. Results indicate that this design could work on live swimming fish in future in vivo experiments.