Energy Storage by Elastic Mechanisms in the Tail of Large Swimmers—a Re-evaluation

✍ Scribed by Reinhard Blickhan; Jian-Yu Cheng

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1994
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 306 KB
• Volume: 168
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-5193
• DOI: 10.1006/jtbi.1994.1112

✦ Synopsis

Fish and cetaceans may use, like mammals, elastic mechanisms to reduce metabolic cost of locomotion. Such energy savings require a detailed tuning of material properties and the dynamics of the system. Bennett et al. (1987, J. Zool., Lond. 211, 177-192) investigated the possibility of energy storage for cetaceans. They concluded that for steady swimming at cruising speed the compliance of the tissues would increase metabolic cost. We re-evaluated this question by expanding the model using a more realistic representation of the hydrodynamic forces. We found that the elastic tissues in the body of cetaceans significantly reduce the cost of locomotion.