CAREER: Performance of Skeleton-Reinforced Biomembranes in Locomotion

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0844857ZhuThis award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). This award will improve our understanding of biomembranes reinforced by embedded skeletons using two representative examples: insect wing and fish fin. The focus will be the correlation between the bio-architecture and locomotion performance a boundary-integral model complemented by an immersed-boundary model. The remarkable characteristics of lightness, durability, deployability, and controllability of fish fins and insect wings may provide ideal models for propulsion systems of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) or micro aero-vehicles (MAV). Recent biological studies show that fish fins and insect wings are anisotropically flexible and their locomotion capacity is closely related to such flexibility, however, present state-of-the-art models lag behind. This study incorporates both the fluid dynamics and the structural responses based upon morphologically realistic designs. The research will also be a vital part of a framework to understand the structure vs. function of a broad range of biological systems which are structurally similar to fish fins and insect wings (e.g. cell membranes or mollusk nacres). In pursuit of this goal, the educational objectives are to enlist current graduate and undergraduate student participation by initiating a curriculum in this direction and to encourage other's participation in this interdisciplinary research effort. Other activities include participation in various programs (e.g., the COSMOS program) to reach out to K-12 students, underserved communities, and previously excluded groups. The PI will also disseminate the results through a dedicated website and an international/interdisciplinary research network facilitated by the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) focusing on fish swimming and adaptations of fish to hydraulic environments.