Auteurs
Sam Van Wassenbergh, Klaas van Manen, Tina A Marcroft, Michael E Alfaro, Eize J Stamhuis
Publicatiedatum
2015/2/6
Tijdschrift
Journal of the Royal Society Interface
Volume
12
Editie
103
Pagina's
20141146
Uitgever
The Royal Society
Beschrijving
The shape of the carapace protecting the body of boxfishes has been attributed an important hydrodynamic role in drag reduction and in providing automatic, flow-direction realignment and is therefore used in bioinspired design of cars. However, tight swimming-course stabilization is paradoxical given the frequent, high-performance manoeuvring that boxfishes display in their spatially complex, coral reef territories. Here, by performing flow-tank measurements of hydrodynamic drag and yaw moments together with computational fluid dynamics simulations, we reverse several assumptions about the hydrodynamic role of the boxfish carapace. Firstly, despite serving as a model system in aerodynamic design, drag-reduction performance was relatively low compared with more generalized fish morphologies. Secondly, the current theory of course stabilization owing to flow over the boxfish carapace was rejected, as …
Scholar-artikelen
S Van Wassenbergh, K van Manen, TA Marcroft… - Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 2015