Room: 5-314
Speaker Name:
Adrienne Lai
Affiliation:
PI: Michael Triantafyllou
Abstract:
Harbor seal whiskers have the characteristic ability to detect changes in flow velocity at the micrometer per second scale, allowing them to track prey with their whiskers as the primary sensor. This unique property has inspired researchers to design low-power, non-invasive, passive sensors to detect upstream vortices, which can be used for mapping, tracking, or survey missions, to detect flow disturbances due to leaks from underwater structures (e.g. pipelines), and track other vehicles without emitting a signal. Previous research indicates that the unique sinusoidal whisker geometry changes their vibration response, so a further understanding of the hydrodynamics involved in whisker vortex detection is key to improving current whisker sensor accuracy and to design sensors to detect new stimuli. In this talk, we discuss the VIV response measured during the tow tank testing of scaled up harbor seal whiskers from the New England Aquarium. We towed the whiskers at both swimming and hunting speeds and in free stream conditions and in the wake of an upstream stimulus (vortex generator and a model of a large tuna). These novel tests provide new information on how seals sense vortices, aiding the development of more accurate and different types of flow sensors in the future.