Thinking

Outside the
Box

Dr. Jim Rohr

National Marine
Mammal Foundation

I AM HERE TO CELEBRATE
SOMETHING YOU HAVE,
THAT I WANT YOU TO KEEP,
TO NURTURE..
WHAT IS IT?

Thinking Outside the Box

What is THIS all about?

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX

Draw four
straight lines to
connect all the
dots. You can not
take your pencil
off the paper.

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX

Draw four straight
lines to connect all
the dots. Each line
must start from the
end of the last line.

A Fine Madness

ONE STRAIGHT LINE?

?
(make line sufficiently thick)

Minimum number of straight lines

without taking pencil off of paper ?

Minimum of 6 lines
are required!
Excluding rotations
and reflections
there are 6 possible
solutions

For n x n square
there are a minimum
of 2n-2 lines required

Thinking Outside the Box The Dolphins Secret

Human ingenuity may make various inventions,

but will never devise any inventions more
beautiful, nor more simple, nor more to the
purpose than Nature does;
(Leonardo da Vinci 15th Century)

Cayley (circa 1809)

We should be deriving our boat from a better architect than man, and
should probably have the real solid of least resistance

Unfortunately, tried to use this shape for row boat

and found it unstable.

Trout

Dolphin

Relative sizes of wire and streamlined airfoil

for the same drag (speed = 210- mph)

Separated
Flow

Streamline Flow

EXTRAORDINARY
SPEEDS
SUGGEST EITHER
EXTRAORDINARY
MUSCLE POWER
or SOME
HYDRODYNAMIC SECRET

People MUSCLE POWER/pound(useful)

=?=
Dolphin MUSCLE POWER/pound(useful)

human oarsmen measurements

averaged over 3-5 minute
0.01 hp/lb (16.4 W/kg)

Suppose you are on a ship that is 136 ft long

and travelling at 8.5 kts (14.35 ft/s).
You notice that a dolphin swims from the back
to front of the boat in 7 seconds.
How fast is the dolphin swimming?

Dolphin MUSCLE POWER(useful)

= Drag x Velocity

33ft/s

MUSCLE POWER(useful) = Drag x Velocity

for turbulent flow
- 121.7 W/kg
for laminar flow
- 14.8 W/kg
16.4 W/kg for oarsmen
BINGO Laminar Flow

Turbulent

Laminar

CD = DRAG / ( V2 A );

for smooth plate

CD

Re

Re=VelocityL/ = 1.8 x 107

PROBLEM

for smooth plate

CD

Dolphin

Re

However, engineers normally have not been able to maintain laminar

flows for Re > 500,000 !!!!

The Hydrodynamic Secret of the Dolphin

G. I. Svyator 1969

Scientists Discover Secret of Dolphin Speed

Yoshimichi Hagiwara 2004

Drag Reduction Strategies

Compliant Surface; Microvibrations;
Laminar

Turbulent

Drag Reduction Strategies

Dermal Ridges - Dolphins

Drag Reduction Strategies

Scales- Sharks

~ 8% drag reduction in turbulent flow

Drag Reduction Strategies

Shark Scales

Initial experiments suggested shark scales increase drag!

Drag Reduction Strategies:

folds

Porpoising

Drag Reduction Strategies:

Drafting

Drag Reduction Strategies

Secretions, induced turbulent boundary layer,
desquamation, boundary layer heating, skin folds

Drag Reduction Strategies : Skin folds

Naked women 17-30 yrs old
towed through water at 2-4 m/s.
Skin folds developed but
increased drag.

6% drag reduction with swim

suits.
(Aleyev, 1977)

Sometimes,

you just get stuck inside the box

Innovation innovare to make new again

Leading-Edge Tubercles Delay Stall on Humpback Whale Flippers

Fish, 2004 (Physics of Fluids)

Bubble-Net Feeding

S
T
A
L
L

Modified Coefficient of Lift

Coefficient of Lift

1.1

0.9

0.7

0.5

0.3

0.1

-5

10

15

20

25

-0.1

Angle of Attack (deg)

-0.3

Miklosovic et al. (2004)

$$$$$

$$$$$

$$$$$

25% electrical savings

40% reduced heating costs
75% quieter

$$$$$

THE END

Does Air Have Weight?

So How Does This Work?

Place a bet?
Can anyone in the room open the bell jar
after the air has been pumped out?

Otto von Guerick 1650

After a few pumps with the syringe, please

try to open bell. What do you observe?

Before

After

What do you observe happens to a balloon,

as the air is pumped out?

What do you observe happens to a

marshmallow, as the air is pumped out?

Make bubbles without pipette!

Can not open bell jar.

Do suction cups really suck?

Does suction pull or does

outside atmosphere push?

- besides suction Boyle and Hooke studied the effect

of no air on: magnetism, boiling, balloons,
a candle flame, flight, an arm, a bird, a person .

comes great responsibility - ???

An Experiment with a Bird in an Air Pump ~ Joseph Wright 1768

with great power comes great responsibility

Uncle Ben

HOW FAST DO THEY SWIM?

Power = Drag x Velocity

School of Delphinus delphis:

maximum speed = 6.7 m/s
(n ~ 1000)

Capture and Release:

Tursiops truncatus
max speed = 5.7m/s
(n ~ 25)

DOLPHIN SWIMMING SPEED

Highest swimming speed at Sea World for Tursiops truncatus
8.2 m/s for 2 seconds

SERENDIPITY

Speed = f(Fluke Amplitude, Frequency)

aside: Moe Rosen - 1959

Velocity
= constant
Frequency x Wake Diameter
~ Moe Rosen

Geronomo

aside so how do they efficiently swim?

Triantafyllou et al. 1991

St = fL/U

Strouhal Number

Series1
0.5
0.45
0.4
0.35
0.3
0.25
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
0
0

4
Sw imming Speed (m/s)

air inside bell jar

air pumped out

Difference ~ 0.223 grams; Volume ~ 225 cm3;

(~75% of air removed)

air is made of molecules, molecules have mass,

and in a gravitational field mass exerts a force = weight

Does air have weight?

per INCH2
We live submerged at the bottom
of an ocean of air
Torricelli - 1644

Why
doesnt
the
air all
fall
down?

Air molecules
are pulled
to earth by
gravity but also
energized by sun

a consequence of airs weight, is pressure

Total force of
about 330 pounds
pushing down

Hand is solid and just

use to
this pressure!

What part of our

body is not solid?

Total force of
about 330 pounds
pushing up

The weight of the atmosphere on our chest, which is filled with air,
is about the weight of an elephant! So why are we not crushed ?

The reason we do not feel the crushing weight of the

atmosphere on our chest is that the pressure inside our lungs
equals the pressure of the surrounding air.

How Does This Work?