2026/01/01 by Michael A. Calicchia, Rui Ni · 1 voice
Engineering · Environmental Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Biomimetic flight and propulsion mechanisms #Marine animal studies overview #Micro and Nano Robotics
paper · doi:10.1093/icb/icag098
openalex publication_date 2026/01/01 · openalex created_date 2026/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/14
Despite its ubiquity in natural flows, the effects of turbulence on fish locomotion and behavior remain poorly understood. The prevailing hypothesis is that these effects depend on the spatial and temporal scales of the turbulence relative to the fish's size and swimming speed. But in conventional facilities, turbulence usually increases with mean flow, which forces higher swimming speeds and can leave these relative scales unchanged. We therefore present a novel experimental facility that leverages a jet array to decouple the turbulence from the mean flow and systematically control its scales. This approach allows the ratio of turbulent to fish inertial scales to be varied over an order of magnitude, providing a controlled framework for quantifying fish-turbulence interactions. The facility also supports experiments probing strategies fish may use to cope with turbulence, including collective behaviors. Insights from this work have broader implications for ecological studies and engineering applications, including the design of effective fishways and bio-inspired underwater vehicles.