So-called 'sandfish' could help materials handling and process technology s... (When the animal moves its head or upper ...)

So-called 'sandfish' could help materials handling and process technology specialists

Date:10/3/2008

When the animal moves its head or upper body to the left, for example, it leaves a gap and thus an area of looser, less dense sand to its rightthat allows the animal to move its front right leg forward with little effort.Conversely, when the sandfish moves its upper body to the right a moment later, the sand on that side is compressed; this compact sand provides a stable basis from which to push off its front right leg.The time displaced-movements of the lizard's legs according to this principle add up to a very efficient and extremely rapid form of locomotion.

Interestingly, the biologists discovered that the sandfish always moves through sand at the same frequency."The lizard's winding movements produce vibrations in the sand," explains Baumgartner."Our experiments showed that these vibrations have a consistent frequency of 3 hertz (three motions per second)."

The scientists hypothesized that this frequency allows the animal to move forward with the least amount of energy,and subsequent tests confirmed their assumption.They did so by building an aluminium model of a sandfish with a motor and having it move back and forth through the sand at different frequencies.They found that the force required to move the aluminium sandfish forward was lowest at exactly 3 Hz, as that was when the sand surrounding its body was loosest.

"The sandfish adapted to moving efficiently through granular material over millions of years," says the Aachen-based neurobionics expert.Scientists are increasingly applying insights gained from nature to a wide range of innovative technological uses."For example, we can use mathematical and computer-based models to calculate the ideal frequency for transporting all different kinds of granular materials," says Baumgartner.

Thus materials-handling and process-technology engineers are not the only ones who can learn from the sandfish;structural engineers stand to benefit, as well.For instance, by using the optimal
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Contact: Professor Werner Baumgartner
werner@bio2.rwth-aachen.de
Public Library of Science
Source:Eurekalert

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So-called 'sandfish' could help materials handling and process technology s...(When the animal moves its head or upper ...)