High-speed recirculating water flume

岩石潮间带是一个水动力压力的栖息地，破碎的波浪对潮间带居民施加巨大的拖曳力。尽管有这种逆境，海浪扫过的海藻在这些条件下茁壮成长，成功地产生了各种各样的形态多样的叶状体，“随波逐流”，弯曲和改变形状，以减少阻力。然而，我们对海藻所经历的拖曳力和冲浪中柔性叶状体的行为的理解受到了我们在实验室中重建高速环境相关流的能力的限制。本提案中要求的资金用于购买一个高速循环水槽，该水槽可产生高达4 m/s的实验流速。建议的水槽是由透明丙烯酸树脂制成的，以便在所有流速下都能看到试样。力传感器和数码相机安装到拟议的水槽，从而使研究人员能够同时量化的阻力和灵活的叶状体在高速的行为。这些数据将被用来估计机械限制的大小和生长的潮间带海藻，并探讨海藻形态的演变中的阻力的选择性作用。此外，研究人员将使用拟议的水槽研究鱼类在极端水流中的游泳性能和须鲸进食的生物力学。

The rocky intertidal zone is a hydrodynamically stressful habitat, where breaking waves impose tremendous drag forces on intertidal inhabitants. Despite this adversity, wave-swept seaweeds thrive under these conditions, successfully producing a wide range of morphologically diverse fronds that "go with the flow," bending over and changing shape to reduce drag. However, our understanding of the drag force experienced by seaweeds and the behavior of flexible fronds in the surf has been limited by our ability to recreate high-speed environmentally-relevant flow in the lab. The funding requested in this proposal is to purchase a high-speed recirculating water flume that generates experimental velocities up to 4 m/s. The proposed flume is constructed of clear acrylic to enable the visualization of test specimens at all flow velocities. Force transducers and digital cameras mounted to the proposed flume will thereby permit researchers to simultaneously quantify drag force and behavior of flexible fronds at high speed. These data will be used to estimate mechanical limits to size and growth of intertidal seaweeds and to explore the selective role of drag in the evolution of seaweed morphology. In addition, the proposed flume will be used by researchers studying the swimming performance of fish in extreme flow and the biomechanics of feeding in baleen whales.